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I rushed Magnetic Weapons research, and to my dismay found that I can't actually build any magnetic weapons in engineering because I don't have any alien alloys.

I know in the first game that shooting down UFOs was a good source of them, but near as I can tell I'm not doing any UFO blasting in this game. Not yet anyway.

Is there anything I can do to hunt down alloys (like choosing certain mission types), or am I just kind of screwed for rushing Magnetic Weapons too early?

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There are five ways I know of to acquire Alien Alloys, ordered from most to least reliable:

  • Cleaning rooms - The rooms on the lower levels of the Avenger will reward you with some units of alloy when cleaned out.
  • Black market - The black market will often offer you alloys in exchange for intel.
  • Map drops - From time to time "activities of interest" will appear on the global map which reward you some alloy when scanned for a few days.
  • Mission Rewards - Sometimes you will receive missions to raid a supply convoy or a landed UFO. These will reward you with alloy.
  • Hacking rewards - Sometimes you can get some alloy as a reward for successful hacking.
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There are several ways I know of to acquire Alien Alloys.

UFO Missions - one of the possible mission types is intercepting a landed or downed UFO. Like the original game, after the mission Alien Alloys can be claimed from the craft.

Alien Machinery - There are 3 types of rooms in the avenger. One of them is "Alien Machinery", and clearing this room type will give a small amount of Alien Alloys.

Supply Raid Missions - Supply Raid missions (Advent Trains) can result in Alien Alloys.

Black Market - The Black market will occasionally offer Alien Alloys. You must buy these lump sump for intel, and they aren't always available.

See also Philipp's answer, above.

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    I later found the black market had some for sale too.
    – Sterno
    Commented Feb 6, 2016 at 11:37
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You can also acquire alien alloys as a hack reward (albeit, with a low probability, dependent on your squad member's tech score) upon a successful hack, seen in the screenshot below:

enter image description here

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    "albeit, with a low probability" - if you mean those 5% and 1% unlock chances, that's because the soldier in this screenshot is a rookie. His hack stat appears to be 5. With a soldier who's actually good at hacking, ideally a specialist, you can get much better odds. (If you mean a low probability of alien alloys being the reward options, then yeah, they don't come up much.)
    – user2357112
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 4:10
  • @user2357112 That's a good point; I've edited the answer a bit towards those lines
    – childe
    Commented Feb 7, 2016 at 4:13
  • For reference I had a 60% chance of getting alloys with a "normal" specialist
    – Jonathan
    Commented Sep 16, 2017 at 7:56

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