XCOM: Enemy Unknown

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

55 Achievements

1,100

82-103h

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As A Scalpel

As A Scalpel

Earn the "Excellent" rating in every performance category on a terror mission.

25

How to unlock the As A Scalpel achievement in XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Definitive Guide

I would recommend going for this on your first "Terror Mission"
You need to earn an excellent rating in 3 categories
1) Enemies killed -Pretty straight forward, kill all the aliens in the mission for this
2) Operatives survived - Dont let any of your troops die to get an excellent here
3) Civilians rescued. - This is the tough part. what i was us a blitzkrieg strategy. If the civilian was directly between me and the next piece of cover I ignored them, opting to kill all the aliens as fast as I could. You don't have to save every human on the mission for the excellent. i saved 10 of 12 and still got an excellent.
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11 Oct 2012 16:44

7 Comments
I got the achievement on normal. What i did was brought 2 support class soldiers with the sprint perk, and had them equipped with Ghost armor. I would make them grab the civilians that were near the enemies while cloaked. Also brought some heavy soldiers so i could use their rockets whenever you had a group of aliens clumped up. I believe i finished with 14/18 civilians saved.
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By Lewd Llama 69 on 14 Oct 2012 16:59
For more data points, I saved 13/18, and did not get the achievement (civilians rescued was rated as "Good," while other two were "Excellent.")
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By RougeRogue1 on 13 Oct 2012 01:33
What level of difficulty where you on?
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By Trez001 on 13 Oct 2012 11:39
you do not actually need to go over to the civilians to rescue them. Once you kill everyone they are automatically saved. FYI I believe i got the achievement with 14/18 saved on normal.
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By D3dGr7sDntS4yNo on 13 Oct 2012 21:44
I've never had this mission with only 12 civ's, but you can lose up to 4 on the ones with 18 and still get excellent.
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By UnjustlyVicious on 15 Oct 2012 13:40
You need 14, i have never seen a terror mission with less than 18, but maybe that is on easy you get 12. This was actually easier on classic, since the enemies like to bum rush you more than standing still and killing the civilians in the distance.
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By Humpyrton on 07 Nov 2012 22:19
Just something of note, you don't need to "manually" rescue all civilians, any that remain after the last alien has been killed will be considered rescued so don't burn too many turns going for the civvies
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By Pmalone6 on 22 Dec 2022 19:03
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I just had an interesting thing happen to me. Maybe it is a solution to getting "As A Scalpel". If anyone else can confirm my technique, this little trick might make this achievement much easier. If what happened to me was just a glitch, then I'll remove this solution, and apologize for getting anyone's hopes up.

I'm late in the game playing Ironman on Classic Difficulty. My map ended up being a bridge, and I had one person who has fully ranked up psionic abilities.

I had her move forward until a muton came into view, and she mind-controlled the muton (she had on Psi Armor) with a 100% chance. This muton was surrounded by his fellow aliens, and didn't last long.

The strange thing was that after this muton was mind controlled and killed by his comrades, the aliens no longer tried to kill any civilians. The civilians were running about to and from cover right in front of aliens and were not fired upon.

I finished the mission (with a few more mind controls and subsequent alien deaths) and got this achievement after only losing two civilians.

Final mission stats:

12 Aliens Killed -- Excellent rating
0 XCom Operatives Lost -- Excellent rating
16/18 Civilians Saved -- Excellent rating
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02 Jun 2013 12:41

You will be given a rating after each terror mission, which are as follows:

  • Aliens killed
  • All soldiers survive
  • Civiilians saved

I recommend to try for this trophy as soon as you upgrade to laser weaponry or if you can get plasma weapons right after you capture live aliens. You will want to play the terror mission very aggressively. You can reload save files until you get a map with no buildings, so you may wish to consider this if you're having difficulties. I personally used the map that looks like a highway because it has lots of cars which can be used as cover and no buildings. Save the civilians if the move to them gets you moving forward because if you can kill all of the aliens quickly, all remaining civilians will be automatically saved.

You may want to leave the Heavy's at home here, because using explosives can accidentally kill civilians. Do not sit back and allow the aliens to move into the fog of war, because they tend to kill civilians rather then attack you. In other words, kill all of the aliens ASAP so that the civilians get saved without having to run up to them and waste turns.

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The description is not at all correct (like the name, I would translate “with surgical precision”). In fact, you need to get three "excellent" ratings while completing the "terror" mission (any one).

From time to time, aliens will launch attacks on entire cities (already in the second month of the game, by the way), and you will urgently have to fly out and save civilians. Unlike regular missions, there is a third score for the number of citizens saved. Townspeople most often stand and wait until they are killed... or you save them. The aliens are happy to deal with them, so the key to victory is to quickly move deeper into the map, not sparing the fighters, and to divert the fire to yourself. True, there is a possibility of exciting too many aliens at once, which is also fraught... If you stand next to a resident, he will instantly run away into the ship, but it is not necessary to evacuate everyone in this way - just clear the map of enemies. For me to get an excellent score on the normal difficulty level, 14 survivors out of 18 were enough (well, of course, kill everyone, don’t lose anyone)
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13 Oct 2012 23:08

1 Comment
Obtaining the trophy depends on the initial disposition of the civilians. I somehow got 4 civilians killed in the first round. Therefore, if it doesn’t work out the first time, you shouldn’t replay it. As long as you get 5 playthroughs, this task will appear many times.
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By LODADS on 21 Nov 2012 11:23
Number of survivors required to receive ratings:

  • 1 - 6 = poor
  • 7 - 13 = good
  • 14 - 18 = excellent
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02 Sep 2013 00:57