Should the Alien and predator be more equal in term of strength?

[judge death]

After they know about sentry guns and their weapons will then adapt their tactics to that scenario.

[OmegaZilla]

When they're in a crossover film, yeah. That's exactly what PWS Anderson wanted to do - bulkier Predators because they were fighting Aliens, sharp-clawed Aliens because they were fighting Predators

[Local Trouble]

After they know about sentry guns and their weapons will then adapt their tactics to that scenario.

Easy to say, but tactics have limits.  Look, I understand this temptation to ascribe some sort of magical bogeyman powers to the Aliens, but it's also worth pointing out that at the end of every movie THEY LOST.

The Aliens are far from invincible.

[judge death]

Far from invisible and in normal range fight they will lose in 9/10 times but that is if they play ball and do that, in the military we have a saying: dont do what the enemy expect or want you to, get them to play your rules. Like in ww2: facing a tiger tank frontally at open terrain is suicide, use terrain and get close and flank it, or close enough that AP can penetrate its front, neglect/remove its advantages.
Im pretty sure xenomorphs will avoid open range battles as well and use different tactics like underground tunnels etc think vietename style.
Likely will win but it will be a long fight Im sure. IF it is a world wide ifnestation I cant say how it would end.

[Local Trouble]

To quote scripture:

The Alien isn't immortal or omnipotent.

Amen.

[BlueMarsalis79]

What does?

More competent going up against the more competent to put it simply.

[happypred]

A question would be how one alien would operate against Dutch and his team in the jungle setting from the original Predator film.

Jim Hopper's team would have killed it and Dutch's team would have never been sent in.  I think the Aliens are vastly overrated against well-armed soldiers with no reason not to shoot them.

The jungle terrain wouldn't be a great environment for an Alien. They need dark shafts and tunnels.

The Alien would lack the key tools Jungle Hunter had...ranged pressure and cloaking.

[SiL]

Or they hide until night time.

[happypred]

Night is better than day, but Dutch's team can counter even at night, which is what you're saying below, I think

The Alien would attack at night and pick the team off one by one.

The team would quickly work out what was going on and stay awake to blow it to pieces.

Of course, it could have turned a team member into an egg in the meantime, which could infect the local wildlife. The commandos would be fine -- any animal large enough to be a host, not so much.

[Huntsman]

If it was more than one Alien, and they were attacking at night, I don't think the team would fare too well.

[OpenMaw]

At some point you're going to have accept that the Aliens just aren't well-suited to ranged warfare.  You can invent as many boobytraps in their hives as you want, but that only works against infantry and only if they're stupid enough to sacrifice their advantage by entering said hives.

How are the Aliens supposed to deal with artillery or air strikes?  Not to mention orbital bombardments and nukes.

This is the problem with questions of this sort in general though.

Who has more stnreght?

Put a naked Predator and a naked Alien in a room together. The alien is going to outclass the Predator every time. It is born with everything it needs to kill. The Predator is not.

Before anyone accuses me of bias, I am one of those fans who is equally in love with both characters.

A fully armed Predator, and an Alien, in that same situation? Odds favor the Predator. The Alien has nowhere to hide and stage an ambush, and the Predator has weapons capable of taking the alien out from a distance One thing seldom commented on the Plasma weapons fuse/carterize wounds... Meaning alien acid in those situations should be minimal.

And then you can expand the variables even further by changing the environment. Jungle? Desert? Colony? Gigerscape?

And then we get into Predator personality, age. Who would be more suited to dealing with alien(s) Jungle, City, Wolf, Mr. Black, Feral?

5,56mm showed they are far from bullet prof.

556 can penetrate steel plates. It's designed to take a target out of action *snaps*.

Here's the thing where the aliens are concerned. They are remarkably fast at regeneration. This is one advantage they *clearly* have over the Predator. Jungle Hunter had to take a time out after Mac grazed him with his M60, to pinch off his bleeding wound. An alien in that situation would likely have retreated just long enough to acquire a new attack angle.

Keeping all the EU, games, etc out of the discussion and going by the cream of the crop, that is Alien, Aliens, Predator, and Predator 2. For raw physical strength the alien outpaces the Predator. The Predator's equipment gives them the clear advantage in many situations, though. Then comes, again, the question of Predator personality. How smart, egotistical, experienced, what gear do they have, etc?



If it's just a general fantasy football question I think you can come up with any answer that you ultimately want... But I think entertaning cinema requires that the aliens be at least a moderate threat to the predators otherwise there is no tension. AvsPR could be mildly entertaining if not for the fact that Wolf basically walks through all of the aliens he encounters. One alien manages to get one good smack on him, but its not even the alien that causes the injury, it's a piece of scenery. That's utterly boring in my view.

[Chieftain Suom]

This topic reminds me of a line from the original Alien vs. Predator comic series.

"...invisibility has little meaning to creatures with no eyes"

[Huntsman]

This topic reminds me of a line from the original Alien vs. Predator comic series.

"...invisibility has little meaning to creatures with no eyes"

I love that. When you consider the technology Predators have, Aliens basically have it all themselves naturally except for ranged weapons.

[SiL]

The thing that should be interesting about hunting Aliens for Predators is that Aliens are better hunters than them, with no training and no technology.

That's the real thrill, the real challenge, and the real thing that's impressive about beating one.

Anyone can shoot an Alien, but out-hunting one is actual achievement.

[razeak]

It's neat I just realized the aliens mirror the marine situation in their two assaults on the Marines in operations.

The aliens go into a "nest" so to speak and run into a massively powerful enemy they don't have a physical ability to deal with in those confines.

If you arbitrarily put the alien on a flat battlefield versus a squad of marines, they are going to get pasted every time. If there is cover, darkness, structures etc, then the battle is going to be more even, but most of the time once the marines have eyes on the enemy, the M41 is going to sing. The tension in Aliens is in the zerg rush and low ammo situation in claustrophobic conditions.

What would be interesting to see on film, is a single alien realizing it doesn't have the hive to rely on, and knowing this, it is smart enough to change it's approach from a zerg rush to the more methodical and stealthy ambush tactics like in Alien.  Like if there was a squad vs 10 aliens the aliens instinctually rush the target, not realizing they will all get cut down, but the lone alien already knows it has to be way more cautious for the sake of propagating the hive.