How to close the stats screen in XCOM UFO: Enethe Unknown

In original version of UFO Enemy Unknown/ Defense there is no EMPs. Best strategy to get UFO without damage is raid them when landed. You can send Skyranger, Avenger or Lightning to purse UFO but minimize the fight screen when you catch the UFO. So your ship will follow them and if landed the UFO Mission will start right away.

Using weaker fire power weapons could also help you to more likely get UFOs down without blowing up their Power Sources. This if of course against smaller UFOs. Larger UFOs still might have some intact power sources even if some of them are blown up. *Note: No resarch done, just my own intuation from years of playing*

One thing to remember about the blaster launcher is that (unlike any other weapon) you can set it to fire around multiple corners. You can set up to 9 waypoints for the blaster round to pass through after you fire it. So your fired blaster round might travel straight up 3 levels from a soldier hiding behind a building, to the east, to the south, through an open UFO doorway, up an elevator shaft, and then against a wall in a specific location in the UFO. Just be aware that if the round strikes any solid object (like an unseen alien) while traveling between waypoints the round will blow up prematurely.

If you are fighting a battle against an alien using psionic control on your soldiers, and you know where he is located, this is a quick way to eliminate that threat.

I would say that the ideal use for a blaster launcher is as an ultimate backup plan; when things are going to hell and multiple scary terror units have been spotted by your soldiers, using it is a way to cut down on opponents before your squad is decimated.

Ideally you will never have to use it; your crack squad of soldiers will precisely pick apart every alien target with laser or plasma rifles, maximizing your acquired loot during that mission. The blaster launcher is the exact opposite of a precise weapon. It's messy, and it's wasteful, and it's the best weapon you can possibly have when when things get really really out of hand and you need to use absolute maximum overkill. It's also a really fun to make very large explosions during a mission, and then reload that mission again so as to do it the slow, precise, tedious way using laser or plasma rifles so as to maximum your loot.