DOS Games Discussion

I am having difficulty clearing UFOs. I recently lost my entire squad in one small UFO encounter. The problem is the doors: as I understand it, the only way to open a door is to walk through it's tile and into the next room, thus exposing oneself to enemy fire. I try to open doors, immediately throw a grenade, and then retreat, but a good portion of the time, the thrower is shot down after opening the door, or is killed by an alien opening the door, blasting my guys, and returning during its turn.

I don't know of any good way to go about this. Whether my guys survive or not seems to rest solely on chance. Is it possible to blow holes in UFO walls early in the game (I'm on my fourth mission)? Or should I just resign myself to replacing half my squad after every mission?

Thanks

No pain no gain, prepare yourself to read and learn a lot@
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://www.xcomufo.com/
http://www.devisraad.com/xcom/

One basic tip - the squaddie opening the door shouldn't be doing any fighting. He opens the door and runs (to the side, on your side of the door). Meanwhile, the rest of your team, prone and in some formation facing the door, proceeds to lob in rockets (or just waits for opportunity fire as aliens wander by the still-open doors). Perhaps one squaddie is upright to throw a grenade in, if you like - especially if you have any fun, fancy grenades already.

The doors don't stay open indefinitely of course, but you can repeat this, carefully. Use a fast mover who is less likely to be caught by alien opportunity fire, and don't dawdle in the doorway. If necessary, you can even use a smoke grenade first, to conceal your door-opening volunteer. You don't need to see the blacks of their eyes to put rockets through the doors and get explosions happening.

If you're lucky, the aliens, shooting wildly with high explosives, may blow the doors away themselves, simplifying the combat.

Finally, for wide doors I generally opened them with a tank - I didn't feel so emotionally attached to those things. This may depend on which game of the series you're playing, I don't recall if they all had tanks...

Finally, alas, in the early running with no armour to speak of, yes, there will be casualties.