Unlike Jeff, I've been finding heavies to be the least useful of my crew. They're too slow to catch up to the action, their accuracy is too low to get the kills to level up, and I rarely bother using explosives. So I often won't take them on missions.

But man, oh man the guided fusion launcher has suddenly made the heavy one of my favorites. Anyone else got the heat seeking rocket replacement?

My first time trying it, I was inside a store, when a cyberdisk and drones appeared outside of the store. I decided to blow up the wall and therefore give my other soldiers line of sight. Instead it shot out, turned left and exited out the back door, swerved around the corner and then obliterated the cyberdisk in one shot. In one move, it accomplished what would have taken me at least 3. This changes everything.

Anyone else using this thing? It seems most players miss it (I've heard many forum posters claim there is no rocket launcher replacement, not true).

It is a little hidden since you can only find the research item needed by invading a battleship-class UFO, but boy is it worth it.

Never found a battleship class UFO during my first clear on normal but I did test out all of the hero characters and the heavy (forget the name) has this upgraded launcher, it's pretty fucking cool the way it navigates corridors and corners and shit. Shoots a glowy green orb!

I think I've seen the battleship class once, but it only came at the start of the game when I had basic interceptors, which it can 2 shot. Never came when I had firestorms :(

Maybe its just me but I always go in slow and my heavy is the first guy into battle. He was also the first to top the tier.

I never even saw a Battleship class UFO in my normal playthrough. I just cleared Normal and am getting started on Classic, so maybe I'll see one there.

I totally thought OP was trolling until I read the two other responses. That's cool, nice throwback to the original.

Yeah that weapon is totally badass. I got it pretty late though so I didn't get to use it enough.

Yeah they say it's guided in the description but I had no idea it was THAT guided. Watching it curve around walls and fly up and over cover to hit your target is magic.

For those who haven't seen a battleship...

Maybe keep scanning and grinding? Unfortunately it's more likely to keep giving you abduction, terror or council request missions before a UFO even shows up, it seems. I'm at the end of the game, did a ton of grinding, and have only gotten 7 UFOs to appear, ever.

If you're not on ironman, you might be able to reroll for a battleship by reloading. The tricky thing is, the next couple of missions in line seem to be set in stone, so you can't reroll for those. But the game seems the game starts randomizing new missions further down the queue (maybe 3rd or 4th). This is all theory, but maybe you can keep reloading until you get it. It does mean you'll have to ignore some missions, which will be trouble.

Battleship mission was pretty fun tho. The interior feels quite different from the base or other large ships.

Oh wow. The blaster-launcher is in this game? I never saw it in my first playthrough because I never encountered a battleship-class UFO.

It's basically the equivalent of that weapon that you only get AFTER you've killed the superboss in the game, so there's nothing really to use it on.

If you're capable of taking down a Battleship, you're pretty clearly already a badass and specifically looking for it.

@Terramagi: Yeah, it's too bad that it actually goes a long way towards making the heavy class more useful, but you get it in the last like 5-10% of the game. It's an even more inconvenient situation than the considerably late-game Ghost armour that allows you to be more effective in pushing forward/scouting with your assaults.

I only used it once and it was a fairly straightforward shot.  It did make a big boom though, so it's unfortunate that the only time I used it was in the final encounter of the game.

I didn't even know this thing existed until now D:

Well now I will have to grind out my second playthrough until the RNG gods decide to send me the Battleship.

Damn. I only used it once so far, and it was a straight shot. Back to XCOM!

Heard from a buddy that the chance of a battleship showing up is much greater IF you actually let a scout UFO go, and possibly if you let the follow-up UFO destroy one of your satellites.

Can't confirm, but this exact situation happened to me mid-game, and later on the battleship definitely appeared. So it's possible.

Any other hidden tech? I researched everything I could before the end of the game but never got that thing or the achievment for getting full research.

Original XCOM had a launcher, that used waypoints set by the player to navigate the environments. That thing literally leveled half the map. You cannot imagine my joy, when I first used that thing. Must be in my top 3 favorite gaming moments to date.This iteration's Über-Launcher pales in comparison - regardless, it's definitely very awesome.

Wasn't too hot on Heavies either during my normal difficulty playthrough. On classic though, the Heavy's destructive AoE is pretty much necessary, because the AI defense rating is much higher on Classic, making Snipers much less effective at extreme range. Got to blow shit up good. Honestly though, I would not have started to play the Heavy the way I do now, without Jeff's wholehearted endorsement - as well as his apt explanation why the heavies badass.

Good times.

Ok, i spent some time just scanning after getting the Firestorms and the UFO that looks like a battleship, classed 'very large' finally showed up. Firestorm with the EMP took it out without a sweat. The ship was huge, almost as large as the alien base you assault as part of the story. You do indeed find the tech that enables the blaster launcher research there. Along with a research for a fusion lance air-to-air weapon (tho i don't see the point in it considering the power of the EMP lol).

@mason said:

Heard from a buddy that the chance of a battleship showing up is much greater IF you actually let a scout UFO go, and possibly if you let the follow-up UFO destroy one of your satellites.

Can't confirm, but this exact situation happened to me mid-game, and later on the battleship definitely appeared. So it's possible.

I can confirm that this is also how I encountered the battleship for the first time closer to the game start, when I was not able to kill it yet.

But it's also just possible to get it purely randomly as any other UFO it seems.

Screenshots for those who want them:

The great thing is like mentioned the rocket can home on any point, which means you can use it with much more versatility than even the normal rocket launcher, curving it around obstacles that would otherwise interfere with rocket trajectory.

@mason said:

Heard from a buddy that the chance of a battleship showing up is much greater IF you actually let a scout UFO go, and possibly if you let the follow-up UFO destroy one of your satellites.

Can't confirm, but this exact situation happened to me mid-game, and later on the battleship definitely appeared. So it's possible.

I don't think this is the case, because one just showed up in my Classic/Ironman playthrough and I haven't had any of those variables. Maybe it makes it more likely though. I've lost two nations and am in the process of building the Gallop(sp?) Chamber, so it's pretty late in the game. I got two turns in without seeing hide nor hair of anything, then saved and exited since I was getting all jittery from the caffeine and stress.

@_@

Researched it but yet to use it. To be honest, I've been on 3 or 4 missions after buying it, but forgot all about it! Thanks for the reminder.

Funny how some of you seem to have not even seen Battleships... I think I did 4 or 5 of them...

No satellites shot down for me, though. I did have a couple of rough months where a bunch of UFOs were slipping by, as a result of some poor decisions early on.

Heavies are great! Their ability to blow any cover the aliens might have to bits is essential, as well as their suppressing fire. And when they're not busy doing those things they get to shoot for massive damage... twice.

The very last mission i did yesterday was a battleship, so it appears i'll get to try out the guided launcher in the final mission of the game, which is up next.

@mason: Wait, that's a thing that exists? I'm pretty sure I researched EVERYTHING on my first playthrough but never saw that. Is it obtained through an interrogation or just foundry as normal?

Heavies are amazing, did you get heat ammo? Because they do like 18 damage to robot enemies with non-crit attacks with their heavy plasma gun, and yeah the blaster launcher is god like.

After beating it on Normal, I did a quick run through on Easy where I found this battleship and launcher research. On the last mission, I sent in a mind-controlled muton elite to trigger the boss, then two heavies shot the launchers from outside the door to the final room and took him down without ever giving the boss a LOS on any human soldier.

You can farm battleships if you want...

Anytime you DO NOT intercept a scout ship, a battleship will appear a few days after to destroy the satellite where the scout appeared. Just have your Firestorms with EMP Cannons/Fusion Lances ready to deal with the battleship when they show up.

Battleships have most of your late games enemies: Mutons (Regular,Elite,Berserker), Chryssalids, Cyberdisks, Sectopods, Heavy Floaters, and an Etheral/Outsiders in the bridge.

Battleships also give a lot of salvage: ~180 elerium and ~300 alloys, along with 6 UFO flight computers and 4 Alien Power Sources; if I remember correctly.

@Vitor: It's explained in this thread. You need to board a Battleship-class UFO and locate its power core with your troops. Or maybe you don't even need to locate it. Either way just beat the battleship level and you'll be able to research it. Getting a battleship to appear, well that's the tricky part. It doesn't show up in every game.

In addition researching the B-ship power core also gives you the best cannon in the game for your interceptors...but by that time in the game you've already proven you can shoot down the biggest ships, so I don't see the point.

A follow up:

So I've seen first hand that you DO NOT need to find a Battleship to get the power core required for this weapon. In my new ironman run, I just shot down and explored a "very large" UFO that didn't have the battleship designation. A previous poster said the same thing, but I can confirm this is true.

HOWEVER...this UFO did appear right after I let a scout ship escape. So after seeing this happen twice, I'm convinced that the way to get the big ships to show up is to let these small scouts escape so they can report to the locations of your satellites to their mothership. Once the mothership comes satellite-huntin' shoot it down and scoop up the goodies inside.

The best part is that this doesn't have to be a late game acquisition. I got this to happen mid-game, right after the base invasion.

So apparently this is part of the upcoming DLC too...will make it available earlier & be impossible to miss, since you get it while playing out Zhang's story.

Oh, i had this researched in my first playthrough but never bought it. Damn...

I'm currently in my first battleship. Having a lot of trouble and keep restarting because of how hard it is.

Huh, never had a problem getting my Heavy s in the fight. Heavy with two attacks in one round, suppress, two grenades. and a rocket launcher is pretty godly.

@kerse said:

Heavies are amazing, did you get heat ammo? Because they do like 18 damage to robot enemies with non-crit attacks with their heavy plasma gun, and yeah the blaster launcher is god like.

Forgot about heat ammo. Yea that shit rocks!