UNIX Shaman
Knowing the geometric dimensions of the mother ship, and particularly the landers, would help us to determine how many spacecraft, or emplacements, would be required in order to englobe, or encirle, the alien spacecraft in question.
It would also be useful to see those dimensions so that we could get some sort of worst-case idea of how many landers, troop transports and Formics are contained within the mothership, as well as how many troop transports and Formics are contained within each lander.
Knowing this allows us to better estimate the upper boundary on how many resources will be required in order to affirmatively resolve this problem – which makes it much easier to persuade governments and decision makers to work together.