Terror Site

Soldiers approach the site of a terror attack.

Terror Site is one of the mission types in XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Mission Brief

“

Alien terror attack in progress. Strong civilian presence, take care to avoid civilian casualties. Failure will have severe political consequences for XCOM.

”

Mission Objectives

• Approach civilians to enable evacuation
• Minimize civilian casualties
• Neutralize all hostile targets

Acquisition

This mission type first appears during the second month and becomes active as part of the "random event pool" for each month of the game after that.

Mission Site

Terror Site missions always take place in densely populated urban areas. The layout is chosen randomly from a set of hand-crafted maps. The pool of mission layouts for many locations of the world is shared. Terror Site missions also partially shares its pool of maps with the Alien Abductions mission type.

Urban areas typically consist of tight spaces with a lot of cover and multiple obstructions. This makes them good for mobility and flanking. Some maps also have multi-level buildings. Having soldiers equipped with grappling hooks via Skeleton Suit or Ghost Armor can be very helpful.

Enemy Types

Depending on the stage of the alien invasion, these missions can feature almost any enemy type, with the exception of Ethereals and Outsiders; however, they typically feature some of the most dangerous enemies in the game, including Cyberdiscs, Sectopods, and Chryssalids. Due to civilian presence, these are also the only missions in which the player may encounter Zombies in abundance.

A terror mission's difficulty rating is always "Very Difficult," and the number of aliens is determined by the game difficulty. The first mission consists of 25-50% fewer enemies than usual. Each enemy pod may consist of one to three aliens.

	Game Difficulty
	Easy	Normal	Classic	Impossible
Pods	3	4	5	5
Total Aliens	8	10	12	15

Tactics

Before mission equip Assault Class with shootgun (You want to maximize damage). Also skip all medkits/health, takes granades instead. Take two heavies if U got.

At the start of the mission, there are 18 civilians spread across the map, whose survival influences the mission results; a rescued civilian count at 14 or above is considered "Excellent." It is possible to rescue civilians by moving a soldier close to them; they will be shown fleeing the map which makes them immune to further attack.  All the civilians do not have to be personally rescued, as any civilians still alive when all aliens are dead automatically count as rescued. However all civilians will count as dead if you lose or abort the mission, even ones that you've rescued. Explosives should be used with care, as they will kill any civilian caught in the blast.

Every turn, alien forces actively roam the area, killing every civilian they can find. When encountered, they will prioritize easily targeted civilians over distantly located XCOM soldiers in cover. As the mission is considered a success as long as at least one civilian is saved, it may be advisable to prioritize squad survival over civilian survival.

Many Terror Site missions feature Chryssalids, which comes with an additional challenge. Civilians - and even soldiers - killed by a Chryssalid's melee attack turn into extremely tough Zombies after one turn. To avoid being overrun, it's preferable to make Chryssalids priority targets when encountered on these missions.

Confident players in a strong position may consider letting Chryssalids kill civilians for a few turns - more Chryssalids means more Chitin Plating and more experience.  So long as one civilian is saved the mission will not be considered a failure. Obviously this is only viable when panic reduction in the terrorized continent is not a concern.

Rewards

Aside from alien corpses, Weapon Fragments, and captured aliens, Terror Site missions confer pre-announced rewards from the affected country. Additionally, panic is decreased by up to three points in the country where the mission took place (varies depending on the number of civilians saved) and by up to two points across the continent (depending on the scoring in all mission areas); scoring Excellent in all three areas can be a way to provide a significant panic reduction to a troubled continent.

Failure of the mission results in immediate withdrawal of the affected country from the Council and a panic increase of the neighboring countries; these missions should not be failed or ignored if at all possible.