During this stage of the campaign, you need to have a plan for taking down stronger enemies, and raiding transports. Also a few notes about Battlescanners.
What is a thing, though, is that once a patrol pod is activated, a stationary pod will become a patrol pod
And this can happen in the same turn
Which is what causes these clown car scenarios where each pod just rolls into you - specifically on these smaller ufo maps where there just isn’t that much room
I am absolutely certain that Hunt protocol exists. The only question I have is about triggers. It’s reasonable for you to have doubts, but you can assuage some of them by reading what others have written about hunt protocol.
After having written this post I twice more encountered the issue of all pods advancing on my position after battlescanning a pod then moving far away from it. I am now convinced that battlescanning pods then moving away from them will trigger hunt protocol vis the loose alien trigger.
You can test this, and should do so if you still have doubts.
I just had a trapped landed medium (only 24 aliens + command pod) on the trash hill map.
My squad started in the lower right corner (one of the best spawns), and I moved towards trash hill and battle scanned a stationary floater pod.
It just stayed there for 20 turns or so and I never had any issues with the whole map patrolling into me
If hunt protocol is a thing, outside of outsider triggers, I don't think it's related to battlescanners - or retreat mode aliens (I've had stray floaters disappear for entire missions and it never caused much of a response)
I've had plenty of missions where seemingly the entire map descends upon me, but if you turn on one of the console edits where you can watch pod behavior in the fog, you'll see that it's really just RNG and based on stationary pods being turned into patrol pods upon activation of patrol pods.
Did you move far away from the floater pod? Like across the map?
I know pods patrol straight for me from across the map, taking the shortest distance and adjusting to my position. Ive seen it multiple times with a scanned pod.
Next time you have a landed large it would be a good test with a save file. It is necessary to move quite far away. Would appreciate hearing about anything you learn.
Also worth noting - the single most dangerious pod you can encounter during the 'mid game', which curiously wasn't mentioned here - is the sectoid commander + 4/5 outsider pods. Which can show up around when beserkers start showing up (July/August). That pod is very hard to prepare for, even with an A team, and can show up in any mission.
This is a good point. They arrive a bit later than berserkers. Maybe you get one at the end of the summer, but more likely you see your first SC in September. I think that's mostly why I omitted them from this post.
I'm not scared of this pod by itself, but when you encounter multiple pods anything that can mind control is a nightmare.
Hmm. I pin them down for August, while I pin heavy floaters for September. But that could be Impossible alien research, and on easier difficulties, that's less of a concern.
Ofc, need to also take into account landings which get +1 month of research.
Disagree what you say about battlescanners triggering hunt mode.
My understanding has always been - once you engage a pod, but fail to cleanly finish it off, such that all active aliens loses LOS, then hunt mode triggers. Furthermore, I've only ever seen it happen in trap landings.
Can't say I've seen battlescanners trigger a pod by itself - and I've thrown plenty of them literally at the feat at inactive pods. On terror missions though, be aware that spotting an 'inactive' zombie will cause it to 'activate', thus giving you 1 tile LOS around it, which may trigger other pods. This occurs whether you spot via battlescaner, or concealment.
Agreed though that spotted inactive pods in the fog can sometimes behave very strangely, and are very prone to teleporting. I've had the boss cyberdisk in a base assault teleport to the very first room, after spotting it via concealment in the last room. Not once, not twice, but three seperate times!
Also worth noting - flashbangs don't reduce movement by 50%. They nerfed it in the 1.0 release down to 40%.
Well I've triggered a dozen or more pods via battlescanners, usually by hitting the aliens with it, but occasionally it lands very close by and they activate. It's happened enough times and I've heard other people talk about it, to know this is real thing, and you should be careful with them.
My theory that battlescanned alien pods can trigger hunt mode is a bit more theoretical. But it's not too far fetched. If loose aliens can trigger hunt mode, and a battlescanned pod is treated the same way, then they would also trigger hunt mode. While battlescanned pods are not activated, they are "different." You can see them, and the camera tracks them - moving to their position during the alien turn. Maybe the code treats those pods similar to the loose alien.
Updated the footnote about flashbangs, thanks. That number also agrees with my notes that berserkers get 6 tiles of movement, if mobility is rounded down, as I had thought it should be.
Be interesting to review footage of when battlescanner triggers occurs. It's entirely possible it's happened to me too, but it's so rare that I don't remember it. The teleporting in my experience is far more common. The worst is when they teleport into Los, thus activating and still get a single action after their scamper (akin to entire pod having yellow alert action in lw2).
I can provide evidence where I've battlesscanned several/all pods on the map of a trap ufo, not trigger hunt mode, only to trigger hunt mode later on once I finally engaged. So again, I'm pretty certain pods spotted via scanner/concealment don't cause hunt mode.
My personal experience with the Hunt protocol is very similar to what you have described, although I am only playing on normal difficulty. There are a lot of people talking about the one lose alien activating the other pods, or activating the command pod triggering the Callforhelp, and the Hunt protocol is none of those things.
I used multiple scanners and a concealment scout on a landed abductor (I believe? It has a command pod of 4, not 6) and after camping on the LZ for a couple of turns, I motion tracked and realized a stationery pod (which consists of 4 Thin men) behind me (!), so I go concealment scout to spot them then wait for next turn to take an opening shot with my ITZ sniper. All is well and I disposed of the pod very quickly, but then when I started camping again, another pod of berserkers just walked into me, which is not strange, but during the engagement I also spotted (through the fog) a pod of floaters beelining straight to my location, which is then followed by a pod of sectoids, sectoid commander and mectoid. Through sheer luck I disposed of them all and the only pod left is the command pod.
The strange things I noticed:
1) This happens to me only on large landed. I am not sure if it is because I play on normal and small or medium simply doesn't have enough pods to demonstrate the behavior. On crashed UFOs or normal abductions, I do not spot similar behaviors. No matter how long I wait, patrols behave normally and stationery pod remain stationery after tagged with battlescanners or concealment scout. Terror is of course Terror and they just ran around not killing civilians after battle scanned.
2) Battle scanned enemies seems to "noticed" they are battlescanned. I think this is not news but is something worth noticing. Supposedly the battlescanner cannot be spotted, because if you don't land it on their head they simply don't activate. However, during combat if you land battlescanners on enemies that are in the fog, they "notice" and will try to relocate to another location. It is particularly noticeable on Thin man, sectoids and exalts because they have the animations of "hey guys, seems like we are spotted. Let's relocate" before they actually take any actions. Funny thing the way they relocate seems random and sometimes expose themselves to squadsight flank. The point is, battlescanning enemies can triggers codes in the game for the enemies.
Another interesting thing is, people keep swear to god that the lose sectoid will activate other pods, and I don't think that it happens a 100% of the time. I see the lose sectoids and mutons wandering into another inactive pods, stationery or patrolling, and proceed to not activate them for several turns. Quite comical, come to think of it. It's like this little kid going to the police station and tell the officers that XCOM maniacs are coming to murder them and the officers are like "eh, not my problem".
I've been meaning to reply to this comment for awhile, but I was in the middle of moving to another city and just couldn't take the time.
But yes everything you've described is what I have experienced. Battlescanned enemies behave weird, and I don't understand how or why. I once saw a battlescanned sectopod teleport 3 times when I was trying to corner it - just kept blinking to another location and thus evading my overwatch traps.
Multiple pods descending on my position is a phenomenon I've only noticed on Large Landed UFOs, but that may be because there just aren't enough pods for it to be obvious on other missions. I think the distance you move from the LZ may be a factor in triggering this. Or perhaps your distance from battlescanned/activated enemies. I think I read something about that in the hunt protocol pseudocode, or on reddit. I believe that an active enemy that moves far away from your position may trigger hunt protocol, but I'm not sure. To me that is the only risk of having loose enemies (other than them moving back into LOS and shooting you). I have also never seen a loose sectoid activate other pods.
First of all, good luck with the moving and wish you the very best on your endeavor in the new city!
I think I am also experiencing the same behavior on a crashed medium UFO. It's a destroyer with 3 pods of enemies, and the command pod of 3 outsiders (that tells you I haven't done the ABA yet). The LZ is near the control room and a scanner sure enough reveal the command pod. With the big night time maze like map I decided to move away and sweep the map for all the pods before engaging since I have brought some juniors for leveling up. Not 2 turns in and I haven't even left the vicinity of the crash site did a pod of seekers friends charge right into me. While trying to make short work of them, I put a scanner behind them to decide whether I should close in for a flank and that scanner revealed a pod close behind, which said pod charged directly towards my position once I passed the turn. Another volley and rocket dealt with, a pod of Exalt and sectoid moves in and is revealed by the scanner. However, this pod is trying to veer to my left seemingly for a flank. I settled in for OW trap and sure enough the pod just charged right in from my left flank. After these pods dealt with, only the command pod remained.
I think this fits quite well with the observation of the Hunt Mode discussion where the OP pointed out 2/3 mode of ChooseHuntPath where they can go DirectHunt, WideHunt or FlankHunt. I also do not believe it a coincidence since: a) it seems unlikely all 3 pods are patrols; b) it seems unlikely all 3 pods decide to patrol directly into the same destination, and; c) the map is quite big and chances are slim that the 3 pods should congregate on a small location, not impossible, but unlikely.
On the note of loose sectoid, I think I actually activated a pod in another mission by shooting and killing a loose sectoid that is too close to a pod right behind him/her. Not really a problem since they are far behind but somewhat of an annoyance since the activated pod just scattered and try to flank me from all sides.
On a completely unrelated note, I survived the March base defense with only a blueshirt down (I hunkered him under half-cover on one side of the Delta area since I have no other cover I can give him, and the sectoid commander proceeds to shoot, 38% hit rate, and hit him for 7, exactly enough to kill him instantly. Very tilting) and I find out their resource seems to have drained? I was getting like 10+ meld before the base defense and now they are reset to 5. That and with the eco round of aliens I am seeing right now, seems they are quite starved.
I don’t think hunt protocol is a thing
What is a thing, though, is that once a patrol pod is activated, a stationary pod will become a patrol pod
And this can happen in the same turn
Which is what causes these clown car scenarios where each pod just rolls into you - specifically on these smaller ufo maps where there just isn’t that much room
I am absolutely certain that Hunt protocol exists. The only question I have is about triggers. It’s reasonable for you to have doubts, but you can assuage some of them by reading what others have written about hunt protocol.
After having written this post I twice more encountered the issue of all pods advancing on my position after battlescanning a pod then moving far away from it. I am now convinced that battlescanning pods then moving away from them will trigger hunt protocol vis the loose alien trigger.
You can test this, and should do so if you still have doubts.
Good luck commander!
I just had a trapped landed medium (only 24 aliens + command pod) on the trash hill map.
My squad started in the lower right corner (one of the best spawns), and I moved towards trash hill and battle scanned a stationary floater pod.
It just stayed there for 20 turns or so and I never had any issues with the whole map patrolling into me
If hunt protocol is a thing, outside of outsider triggers, I don't think it's related to battlescanners - or retreat mode aliens (I've had stray floaters disappear for entire missions and it never caused much of a response)
I've had plenty of missions where seemingly the entire map descends upon me, but if you turn on one of the console edits where you can watch pod behavior in the fog, you'll see that it's really just RNG and based on stationary pods being turned into patrol pods upon activation of patrol pods.
Did you move far away from the floater pod? Like across the map?
I know pods patrol straight for me from across the map, taking the shortest distance and adjusting to my position. Ive seen it multiple times with a scanned pod.
Next time you have a landed large it would be a good test with a save file. It is necessary to move quite far away. Would appreciate hearing about anything you learn.
Also worth noting - the single most dangerious pod you can encounter during the 'mid game', which curiously wasn't mentioned here - is the sectoid commander + 4/5 outsider pods. Which can show up around when beserkers start showing up (July/August). That pod is very hard to prepare for, even with an A team, and can show up in any mission.
This is a good point. They arrive a bit later than berserkers. Maybe you get one at the end of the summer, but more likely you see your first SC in September. I think that's mostly why I omitted them from this post.
I'm not scared of this pod by itself, but when you encounter multiple pods anything that can mind control is a nightmare.
Hmm. I pin them down for August, while I pin heavy floaters for September. But that could be Impossible alien research, and on easier difficulties, that's less of a concern.
Ofc, need to also take into account landings which get +1 month of research.
Disagree what you say about battlescanners triggering hunt mode.
My understanding has always been - once you engage a pod, but fail to cleanly finish it off, such that all active aliens loses LOS, then hunt mode triggers. Furthermore, I've only ever seen it happen in trap landings.
Can't say I've seen battlescanners trigger a pod by itself - and I've thrown plenty of them literally at the feat at inactive pods. On terror missions though, be aware that spotting an 'inactive' zombie will cause it to 'activate', thus giving you 1 tile LOS around it, which may trigger other pods. This occurs whether you spot via battlescaner, or concealment.
Agreed though that spotted inactive pods in the fog can sometimes behave very strangely, and are very prone to teleporting. I've had the boss cyberdisk in a base assault teleport to the very first room, after spotting it via concealment in the last room. Not once, not twice, but three seperate times!
Also worth noting - flashbangs don't reduce movement by 50%. They nerfed it in the 1.0 release down to 40%.
Well I've triggered a dozen or more pods via battlescanners, usually by hitting the aliens with it, but occasionally it lands very close by and they activate. It's happened enough times and I've heard other people talk about it, to know this is real thing, and you should be careful with them.
My theory that battlescanned alien pods can trigger hunt mode is a bit more theoretical. But it's not too far fetched. If loose aliens can trigger hunt mode, and a battlescanned pod is treated the same way, then they would also trigger hunt mode. While battlescanned pods are not activated, they are "different." You can see them, and the camera tracks them - moving to their position during the alien turn. Maybe the code treats those pods similar to the loose alien.
Updated the footnote about flashbangs, thanks. That number also agrees with my notes that berserkers get 6 tiles of movement, if mobility is rounded down, as I had thought it should be.
Be interesting to review footage of when battlescanner triggers occurs. It's entirely possible it's happened to me too, but it's so rare that I don't remember it. The teleporting in my experience is far more common. The worst is when they teleport into Los, thus activating and still get a single action after their scamper (akin to entire pod having yellow alert action in lw2).
I can provide evidence where I've battlesscanned several/all pods on the map of a trap ufo, not trigger hunt mode, only to trigger hunt mode later on once I finally engaged. So again, I'm pretty certain pods spotted via scanner/concealment don't cause hunt mode.
My personal experience with the Hunt protocol is very similar to what you have described, although I am only playing on normal difficulty. There are a lot of people talking about the one lose alien activating the other pods, or activating the command pod triggering the Callforhelp, and the Hunt protocol is none of those things.
I used multiple scanners and a concealment scout on a landed abductor (I believe? It has a command pod of 4, not 6) and after camping on the LZ for a couple of turns, I motion tracked and realized a stationery pod (which consists of 4 Thin men) behind me (!), so I go concealment scout to spot them then wait for next turn to take an opening shot with my ITZ sniper. All is well and I disposed of the pod very quickly, but then when I started camping again, another pod of berserkers just walked into me, which is not strange, but during the engagement I also spotted (through the fog) a pod of floaters beelining straight to my location, which is then followed by a pod of sectoids, sectoid commander and mectoid. Through sheer luck I disposed of them all and the only pod left is the command pod.
The strange things I noticed:
1) This happens to me only on large landed. I am not sure if it is because I play on normal and small or medium simply doesn't have enough pods to demonstrate the behavior. On crashed UFOs or normal abductions, I do not spot similar behaviors. No matter how long I wait, patrols behave normally and stationery pod remain stationery after tagged with battlescanners or concealment scout. Terror is of course Terror and they just ran around not killing civilians after battle scanned.
2) Battle scanned enemies seems to "noticed" they are battlescanned. I think this is not news but is something worth noticing. Supposedly the battlescanner cannot be spotted, because if you don't land it on their head they simply don't activate. However, during combat if you land battlescanners on enemies that are in the fog, they "notice" and will try to relocate to another location. It is particularly noticeable on Thin man, sectoids and exalts because they have the animations of "hey guys, seems like we are spotted. Let's relocate" before they actually take any actions. Funny thing the way they relocate seems random and sometimes expose themselves to squadsight flank. The point is, battlescanning enemies can triggers codes in the game for the enemies.
Another interesting thing is, people keep swear to god that the lose sectoid will activate other pods, and I don't think that it happens a 100% of the time. I see the lose sectoids and mutons wandering into another inactive pods, stationery or patrolling, and proceed to not activate them for several turns. Quite comical, come to think of it. It's like this little kid going to the police station and tell the officers that XCOM maniacs are coming to murder them and the officers are like "eh, not my problem".
I've been meaning to reply to this comment for awhile, but I was in the middle of moving to another city and just couldn't take the time.
But yes everything you've described is what I have experienced. Battlescanned enemies behave weird, and I don't understand how or why. I once saw a battlescanned sectopod teleport 3 times when I was trying to corner it - just kept blinking to another location and thus evading my overwatch traps.
Multiple pods descending on my position is a phenomenon I've only noticed on Large Landed UFOs, but that may be because there just aren't enough pods for it to be obvious on other missions. I think the distance you move from the LZ may be a factor in triggering this. Or perhaps your distance from battlescanned/activated enemies. I think I read something about that in the hunt protocol pseudocode, or on reddit. I believe that an active enemy that moves far away from your position may trigger hunt protocol, but I'm not sure. To me that is the only risk of having loose enemies (other than them moving back into LOS and shooting you). I have also never seen a loose sectoid activate other pods.
First of all, good luck with the moving and wish you the very best on your endeavor in the new city!
I think I am also experiencing the same behavior on a crashed medium UFO. It's a destroyer with 3 pods of enemies, and the command pod of 3 outsiders (that tells you I haven't done the ABA yet). The LZ is near the control room and a scanner sure enough reveal the command pod. With the big night time maze like map I decided to move away and sweep the map for all the pods before engaging since I have brought some juniors for leveling up. Not 2 turns in and I haven't even left the vicinity of the crash site did a pod of seekers friends charge right into me. While trying to make short work of them, I put a scanner behind them to decide whether I should close in for a flank and that scanner revealed a pod close behind, which said pod charged directly towards my position once I passed the turn. Another volley and rocket dealt with, a pod of Exalt and sectoid moves in and is revealed by the scanner. However, this pod is trying to veer to my left seemingly for a flank. I settled in for OW trap and sure enough the pod just charged right in from my left flank. After these pods dealt with, only the command pod remained.
I think this fits quite well with the observation of the Hunt Mode discussion where the OP pointed out 2/3 mode of ChooseHuntPath where they can go DirectHunt, WideHunt or FlankHunt. I also do not believe it a coincidence since: a) it seems unlikely all 3 pods are patrols; b) it seems unlikely all 3 pods decide to patrol directly into the same destination, and; c) the map is quite big and chances are slim that the 3 pods should congregate on a small location, not impossible, but unlikely.
On the note of loose sectoid, I think I actually activated a pod in another mission by shooting and killing a loose sectoid that is too close to a pod right behind him/her. Not really a problem since they are far behind but somewhat of an annoyance since the activated pod just scattered and try to flank me from all sides.
On a completely unrelated note, I survived the March base defense with only a blueshirt down (I hunkered him under half-cover on one side of the Delta area since I have no other cover I can give him, and the sectoid commander proceeds to shoot, 38% hit rate, and hit him for 7, exactly enough to kill him instantly. Very tilting) and I find out their resource seems to have drained? I was getting like 10+ meld before the base defense and now they are reset to 5. That and with the eco round of aliens I am seeing right now, seems they are quite starved.