Alien Grenade

This article is about the weapon. For the Foundry project, see Alien Grenades.

The Alien Grenade is an explosive weapon that uses an item slot in XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Description

Alien grenades are similar to ordinary grenades, but deal an increased amount of damage (5 damage, 2 more than the Frag Grenade's 3).

Availability

Alien Grenades can be recovered from Mutons, Sectoid Commanders, Muton Elites, and Heavy Floaters by stunning them with the Arc Thrower. Capturing these aliens alive usually conveys an Alien Grenade in addition to the weapon the alien was carrying.

Alien Grenades, unlike Plasma Weapons, do not have a research project associated with them, and so can be used immediately after being acquired. While the supply of Alien Grenades is initially limited to only those recovered, each unit is treated as an item with usable "charges", much like the Medikit or Arc Thrower.

Completion of the Foundry project Alien Grenades confers an unlimited supply of Alien Grenades.

Tactical Info

“	▪  Uses per mission: 1 ▪  The Alien Grenade has the same blast radius as the Frag Grenade: roughly 2 tiles ▪  Does 5 damage to all targets in blast area ▪  Friendly targets in blast area are affected	”
– Tactical Info, XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Notes

• In common with all grenade types, Alien Grenades are 100% accurate and deal consistent base damage across their radius.
• As a noticeable improvement over the Frag Grenade, the Alien Grenade can be very useful in the mid game if recovered early.
• A grenade's tactical value extends beyond just wounding or killing enemies in being able to immediately destroy cover or walls; such environment destruction can make shots easier for other soldiers, open up new sightlines and paths of movement or make other tactical options available.
• In XCOM: Enemy Within, Heavies with the Grenadier ability can inflict 6 points of damage with an Alien Grenade, on par with the standard Fire Rocket ability with a Rocket Launcher. Grenades are unaffected by Danger Zone or Mayhem.
• There is a glitch in the game: when a human throws an Alien Grenade with an overhand throw, the first beep the grenade makes sounds like a Frag Grenade's and the blinking light is red instead of the Alien Grenade's green. All the other beeps after that sound like the Alien Grenade's, and the blinks are all green. Presumably this happens because the first beep occurs while the grenade hasn't left the soldier's hand and become a separate entity with its own sound files, as the same glitch happens when a Support uses a Smoke Grenade, which doesn't beep after thrown.
• Capturing an EXALT Elite Operative or Heavy with Arc Thrower does not grant you the Alien Grenade. Rather, it breaks into fragments regardless.