Xcom advice

[Father Beast]

I am trying to play this massively critically aclaimed game, again. It seems pretty hard to me, even though I'm on the lowest difficulty.

Missions: I lose soldiers on every mission I embark on, especially when I enter the alien ship. it's like they are all waiting to blast my troops as soon as they come through the door.

I also have a problem with a soldier stopping because he sees an alien, and I can't find it. I scroll all over the map, and I don't know where he sees the critter. this especially happens at night.

I'm afraid I just completely suck at squad tactics. with 2 downed alien ships, I have lost 25 soldiers on 3 missions (went back to one ship twice with a new set of green soldiers) and although one soldier has made captain, the ranks of the dead intimidate me.

[Dis]

whew that are some heavy losses

but you gotta expect to lose some. its a fact of life (x-com life)

first you need to go through the tedious job of screening your recruits. choose the ones with firing accuracy, bravery as keepers. protect these guys. get them 1 or 2 kills per mission, then pull them back when you are ready to enter the ship.

Yes the aliens are waiting for you. don't send your keepers in first. use the corners to your advantage. leave enough action points (correct term?) to allow for a snap shot during the aliens turn. you can usually bag 1 or 2 this way.

gamespot has a good guide you can use. some of it is too techinical, but there are a ton of good hints. well I tried to find it but couldn't . gamespot used to be a good site until they redesigned it.

protect your keepers!!!!!!!!!. 2 times you definately want to move expendables first are when exiting the troop ship, and entering the alien ship. small ships aren't too bad, but when you round the corner (use the corners!!) to the control room (top part) expect to see 1-3 aliens. and sometimes 1 or 2 in the center room.

a strategy I use is to use the expendables as scouts, but use my keepers to get the kill (kills are what mainly moves them up in rank).

as for that pesky last alien you can't find you just got to use your expendables to search them out. try the wheat fields (the tall crops obscure the little ones) and the 2 story buildings. If you aren't on a terror mission just use a rocket launcher on it . incendary is good because it takes those wood structures out although the smoke is a nuiscance sometimes.

also consider using a tank as a scout. they can take a lot of hits. it may be a little expensive to buy on your first 3 missions. but it won't be long until you can afford one. use this a scout only!! use your keepers to get the kills. your keepers should have good firing accuracy so they can snipe them from long range. You may want to change the names of the keepers to make them easy to remember.
[This message has been edited by Dissident (edited April 24, 2001).]

[Urban Ranger]

Screen your team as dissident says. You need good bravery and accuracy for them. If you can't get 6 decent ones consider starting over.

When you attack an alien ship shot down by your fighters, you can always enter through the big gaping holes in the wall and not through the doors. This way, you can surprise the aliens. However, very often the aliens are outside the ship meandering around. Keep your squaddies close with each other so they can support each other.

Don't use up all your movement points. Reserve enough for a snap shot. This is called opportunity fire, which is very important because you get to shoot before the aliens.

Get a tank and use it to scout around. Again reserve MP for opportunity fires.

Use terrain to your advantage.

You should get decent weapons for your team. Autocannon with HE ammo is probably your best bet in the beginning. Later on use laser rifles until you get the plasma rifles.

For terror missions you need to have those flares ready. Move slowly and keep your people together. Not that close since the bloody aliens might use grenades.

Keep an eye on your cash situation. Get lots of engineers to produce stuff to sale. Laser cannon is one of the best cash items.

The three best starting place for your first base are the US, artic, and Antartica. You need to keep the US happy since they give you the most money.

If you need even more help I can send you the unofficial strategy guide.

[Richard Bruns]

I find that the European nations provide more funding. In my most recent game, this was the funding, in thousands:

USA 1006, Canada 196, Total 1212
UK 378, France 579, Germany 292, Italy 157 Spain 145, Total 1551

And that doesn't include that partial coverage of Russia (235) and Egypt (294) that a Europe base provides.

I know that these numbers change every game, but the ratio is usually the same. Besides, setting up a new base in Rurope costs more than setting up a new base in the USA, so starting there saves money.

As for soldier losses, nothing stops that. My expected losses before body armor are:

Shot-down small UFO: 0-2
Landed small UFO: 1-3
Terror site: 2-5

Almost all of my losses come from the alien's opportunity fire when my troops are walking. They are advancing, and then they die. Nothing really stops that, except body armor. To keep losses down in the alien movement turn, make sure to crouch your troops beside walls and other cover. That makes them a smaller target and improves the accuracy of their reaction fire.

I find that, at least in the beginning, reaction fire only goes off after the aliens shoot. In a recent mission, there were two times where an alien shot a soldier and was then killed by another soldier.

Grenades are excellent for keeping casualties down in the early game. Aliens never react to a grenade landing at their feet, so you don't have to suffer the reaction fire. Also, grenades don't miss. If you see an alien that is looking your way but hasn't shot yet, try chucking a grenade on it and pressing the end turn button. It won't react to the movement, and it will probably die before it can move the next turn. Grenades are also great for killing those aliens that the scouts find that you could never get a shot at with a gun.

Onse strategy for the ships is to send in one rookie with a primed high explosive on his belt. When he gets shot, the explosive will go off, obliterating the entire room. This will usually clear out every alien in an small one-room UFO. It may seem cruel, but it limits your casualties to one. The only disadvantage is that the power source and navigation are reduced to scrap. You don't lose the elerium, though.

Try to capture a navigator as soon as possible, and research hyperwave scanner. You see every UFO in a huge radius, which means that you can shoot down far more of them and get a higher score. Four bases with hyperwave scanners will cover the whole globe. With this, you will usually be able to shoot down the terror ships before they reach the city. Then you can attack them where they went down, which is much less hazardous than city fighting. Also, you get the UFO scrap. Or if it is something like an ethereal or snakeman ship, you can just let it sit there until it disappears. There is no penalty for not attacking a downed UFO.

The stun bomb launcher is a good weapon by itself. Usae it on the big clusters of aliens inside a ship. It will take most of them out, and you will probably get a navigator.
[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited April 24, 2001).]

[Father Beast]

a Tank? Can you fit a tank into the Skyranger? I never got very far in this game, so this is all new to me.

Unofficial strategy guide? sounds useful.

I put my first base in Europe, close to the Ukraine, and immediately started building a second in central US.

I did make sure that all my troops had rifles, after I was teed off that one only had a pistol in the first mission. But is a autocannon better to have on all, or just a few?

I threw a few grenades, and found them useful. should I make sure that all my people have a couple spares?

Primed high explosive on the belt? how do you do that? I thought you could only prime the stuff in your hand.

I thought about getting the engineers to produce something, but there's nothing to produce. do I have to wait for the scientists to have a breakthrough?

speaking of scientists, I wanted body armor, and I set my scrollheads to researching alien alloys and laser rifles. I hope that the alloys can get me the wanted body armor...

I noticed that on my second mission, some of my experienced people were automatically reserving some time units for snap shot. do they keep getting smarter as they increase in rank?

And What about night fighting? the time I left and came back to a crash site, I had come at night the first time and got 7 out of 10 of my squad shot down without seeing any aliens. some of them stopped with the "1" in the corner saying they saw one, but I couldn't find it.

[Rex Little]

1. You can fit a tank into any transport that carries soldiers. The tank takes up the same space as 4 soldiers in a 2x2 square.

2. When I played, I only had one or two troops with autocannon. Because of the weight and the number of action points required to fire, it's probably not a good idea to have everyone use this, IMO. Others may disagree.

3. Scientists have to research something before engineers can make it.

4. IIRC, alloys are indeed a prerequisite for body armor.

5. All troops, experienced or not, can be set to reserve action points for opportunity fire. I forget exactly what the buttons look like which do this, but you can experiment. I don't know why your experienced troops are defaulting to that setting.

6. When your soldier spots an alien but you can't see it, click on the number which popped up. This centers the screen on the alien. You still might not see it, but if you move the cursor over it, the cursor turns yellow. Any soldier with a line of sight to the alien can shoot it, even if you can't see it.

[Richard Bruns]

quote: Originally posted by Father Beast on 04-24-2001 09:27 AM I did make sure that all my troops had rifles, after I was teed off that one only had a pistol in the first mission. But is a autocannon better to have on all, or just a few? I threw a few grenades, and found them useful. should I make sure that all my people have a couple spares?

Yes, stock up on grenades. They are cheap. Two or three per soldier is a good idea. Electro-flares are also an invaluable asset for night missions. You soldiers can't see very well in the dark, and the aliens can. There have been many times when that red light flashed right after I threw a flare, meaning that the flare revealed an alien that would have otherwise killed someone. But the best thing about the flares is that they are recovered intact after the mission; you don't have to buy replacements

With grenades and elecro-flares, I almost always run into that stupid 80-item limit, which is another reason to get a tank. Laser weapons are good too, since they don't have clips that go against the item limit.

I never buy any normal human firearms. I recruit loads of scientists and research laster stuff as soon as possible. A laser pistol is about as powerful as an auto-cannon, and a laser rifle is more powerful than a heavy cannon. I can have pistols in about two weeks and a rifles in less than a month.

quote: Primed high explosive on the belt? how do you do that? I thought you could only prime the stuff in your hand.

You have to take it off the belt, prime it, and put it back on the belt. That takes about half the movement points. Be sure to leave enough time to step into the UFO. If this walking bomb gets shot while he is close to your squad, they get splattered all over the battlescape.

quote: I thought about getting the engineers to produce something, but there's nothing to produce. do I have to wait for the scientists to have a breakthrough? speaking of scientists, I wanted body armor, and I set my scrollheads to researching alien alloys and laser rifles. I hope that the alloys can get me the wanted body armor...

It is best to concentrate all your research on one thing, especially in the beginning when the engineers have nothing to do. Research to laser pistol ASAP, and have the engineers make about four of those. By the time they are finished, the laser rifle research will be done and you can make enough to equip the whole squad. I use laser rifles for most missions throughout the game, because the plasma weapon clips are too expensive (3 elerium) to use up without reason. A single shot will make the game write off the entire clip.

The previous timeframe assumes that you hire about 14 scientists at the beginning of the game. I recruit 8 soldiers as well, then ditch the rotten ones and hire more scientists to replace them. I also build a living quarters and a second laboratory at the beginning. When the living quarters is done, I hire enough scientists to fill the lab, and when the lab is done I fill up the living quarters again.

I also build a General Stores and an Alien Containment at the beginning. The stores will fill up pretty quickly with alloys and such, and I try to capture a navigator in the first month.

quote: I noticed that on my second mission, some of my experienced people were automatically reserving some time units for snap shot. do they keep getting smarter as they increase in rank?

I have never experienced this. You might have accidently hit the reserve time button at the bottom left of the screen.

quote: And What about night fighting? the time I left and came back to a crash site, I had come at night the first time and got 7 out of 10 of my squad shot down without seeing any aliens. some of them stopped with the "1" in the corner saying they saw one, but I couldn't find it.

Flares, flares, and more flares. Litter the battlefield with them. Do the same with grenades. If they are hiding in a shed or something, don't send a person in. Toss a grenade or three after the alien. Even if they don't kill the creep, the smoke can mess with their aim and vision. But there is a bug with grenades and other explosives: they only affect the level they land on. Tossing a grenade under a Floater hovering in midair will do nothing.

[Ari Rahikkala]

The time point reserving buttons are in the lower left corner of the screen. You should see one red button and three green ones; Press the green ones to choose the type of time reserving (gun on shoulder: Aimed shot, gun on pelvis with one shot: snap shot (recommended), gun on pelvis with three shots: auto shot).

[Garth Vader]

If you are getting the "1" indicating that you see an alien but you can't actually see it. Click on it, your soldier will turn to face it. If you still can't see it on the screen select one of the shots and move the crosshairs around the map in the direction of the alien. They will change color when you find it. Remember that they can be on upper levels of buildings, even on the roof.

[faded glory]

THE GAME IS IMPOSSIBLE. With every year that goes bye , funding gets cut off and more and more aliens attack your bases and citys. But the city combat is real fun tho. The game was amazing, considering it was made for 386 machines.

[Father Beast]

quote: Originally posted by Dissident on 04-24-2001 03:39 AM gamespot has a good guide you can use. some of it is too techinical, but there are a ton of good hints. well I tried to find it but couldn't . gamespot used to be a good site until they redesigned it.

Thanks, dissident. I found it! it's at:
http://www.gamespot.com/strategy/xcomufo/hints.html

I downloaded that, will print it out soon (57 pages! Whew!)

[Richard Bruns]

quote: Originally posted by Saddam on 04-24-2001 04:00 PM THE GAME IS IMPOSSIBLE. With every year that goes bye , funding gets cut off and more and more aliens attack your bases and citys. But the city combat is real fun tho. The game was amazing, considering it was made for 386 machines.

What diffuculty level are you on? My finding keeps increasing every month because I always have positive scores. If you win all the missions, even barely, you should have positive scores. Be sure to take out any alien bases you find and react to all terror sites.

But luck can turn against you. My base just got attacked in the second week by a big crew of Sectoids and Cyberdisks. I didn't have a chance, because I didn't have any armor and the early weapons can't even scratch cyberdisks. Plus there was a leader in there that kept controlling and panicking my troops. They slaughtered me in four turns. I reloaded and that time, they wiped me out in three turns.

It is pretty unfair. My tank put scored four direct hits on a cyberdisk without killing it. I also attacked that thing with two troopers, and they also hit it but didn't destroy it. Then the thing blows my tank to smithereens with one shot and kills a trooper with another shot.

I hate the sectoid/cyberdisk combo.

[Urban Ranger]

I would actually attempt to capture a Sectoid commander early. That way you can start training is Psi, which is just totally awesome. You can't win the game without powerful Psi soldiers, or at least I haven't tried

Sack all your engineers and replace them with scientists. Build a second living quarter right away and hire as many scientists as you can afford. Have them all start researching laser weapons. Once you have something start hiring some engineers to build them.

By the way, high explosives are the best grenades. You can chuck them, and they waste a lot of the bugged-eyed baddies if used correctly.


FB,

You should start building a second base until your first base is fairly well equipped.


RB,

I think you can destroy a Cyberdisk early on, but you have to attack it from behind. Maybe AP ammo on an autocannon or something.

[Urban Ranger]

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 04-24-2001 09:06 AM USA 1006, Canada 196, Total 1212 UK 378, France 579, Germany 292, Italy 157 Spain 145, Total 1551

The thing is, it's much easier to keep one big country happy than 5 smaller ones.

[Urban Ranger]

quote: Originally posted by Father Beast on 04-24-2001 07:52 PM Thanks, dissident. I found it! it's at: http://www.gamespot.com/strategy/xcomufo/hints.html I downloaded that, will print it out soon (57 pages! Whew!)

That's it. Get the USG also, very useful.

[Richard Bruns]

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 04-24-2001 10:51 PM Sack all your engineers and replace them with scientists. Build a second living quarter right away and hire as many scientists as you can afford. Have them all start researching laser weapons. Once you have something start hiring some engineers to build them.

My laser pistol research is always complete far before that living quarters is built. I need those ten engineers after only ten days of research.

quote: By the way, high explosives are the best grenades. You can chuck them, and they waste a lot of the bugged-eyed baddies if used correctly.

Most of my grenade use is to hit a single target at long range. The scout finds one at the edge of his view, and someone behind that troop will send a grenade at the lone offending alien. How do you get them to throw the high explosive that kind of distance?

quote: I think you can destroy a Cyberdisk early on, but you have to attack it from behind. Maybe AP ammo on an autocannon or something.

I know it's possible. My preferred method is (surprise) grenades, since the underbelly armor is the weakest. But in that game there were about three of them in a group together and I can't throw grenades in the corridors of my base.

[Urban Ranger]

Laser pistol is, uhm, uninteresting. I usually skip straight to laser rifles, and really crack up production when I get the heavy laser cannon.

[Paul Hanson]

I personally forget laser pistols, get laser rifles, and move on to plasma rifles as soon as possible after that. When it becomes economical, I start using heavy plasma.

[Richard Bruns]

According to the numbers in the UFOpedia, laser pistols have a power and fire rate, and accuracy equivalent to an auto-cannon. I make about six of these pistols while researching laser rifles, and they seem to do wonders for my ability to kill aliens. Are those numbers wrong?

[Father Beast]

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 04-24-2001 10:51 PM FB, You should start building a second base until your first base is fairly well equipped.

Isn't the base you start out with "fairly well equipped"? if not, what is? I wanted to get some coverage over the US so there'd be something I could do over there, insted of watching my US funding continually drop. I also want to put up a china base soon, then the northern hemisphere will be pretty much covered.

in other news. I got word of a terrorizing attack in south africa, but it was too far, and I had just come back from ANOTHER mission and only had 4 soldiers at the time. I had ordered more, but they hadn't arrived yet. So I didn't go. is this going to hurt me pretty bad?

[Father Beast]

BTW, I only have an interceptor in the second base. How long do they stay on the ground after you shoot them down? long enough for me to build a second hangar and a skyranger and outfit it?

[Ari Rahikkala]

quote: Originally posted by Father Beast on 04-25-2001 09:30 AM BTW, I only have an interceptor in the second base. How long do they stay on the ground after you shoot them down? long enough for me to build a second hangar and a skyranger and outfit it?

IIRC about one day. Usually it is a basic strategy to use only a single central base where you have your soldiers so that you can put all the training stuff and your best ships together into that single base.
[This message has been edited by LightEning (edited April 25, 2001).]

[Richard Bruns]

quote: Originally posted by Father Beast on 04-25-2001 09:27 AM Isn't the base you start out with "fairly well equipped"? if not, what is? I wanted to get some coverage over the US so there'd be something I could do over there, insted of watching my US funding continually drop. I also want to put up a china base soon, then the northern hemisphere will be pretty much covered.

A well equipped base has two fully staffed labs, at least three living quarters, a hyperwave scanner, a defense rating over 3000, a grav shield and mind shield, several alien containments and general stores, a psi lab or two, and three hangers with two Firestorms and an Avenger.

But I typically start building the second base as soon as I research the hyperwave scanner, which is February if things are going well. By the time the hangar is finished, I'll hopefully have an interceptor with two plasma cannons to transfer there. When that base is running, I shoot down as many UFO's as possible with that interceptor, so they are less likely to find the main base.

Eventually, that little base gets built up into a base with soldiers and the skyranger. I'll build the Avenger in the main base and keep the best troops in there, while the second string goes to the other base. I'll use those guys for minor missions like small or medium downed UFO's and reserve the main squad for the terror sites and big UFO crashes.

quote: I got word of a terrorizing attack in south africa, but it was too far, and I had just come back from ANOTHER mission and only had 4 soldiers at the time. I had ordered more, but they hadn't arrived yet. So I didn't go. is this going to hurt me pretty bad?

Expect a negative score and a loss of all funding from South Africa.

[faded glory]

The tanks and Hover tanks later in the game, ROCK. Although the first few years are tough. Trying to take out Sectiods and Slugs. I guess what I find most difficult is the Ethereals. There #$@! mind control BS. Anyway, the easiest way to win battles is to level citys. How do you level citys? With the Alien Blaster .


Hey I have not played X-Com in 7 years. My CD is a bit too corrupt. Does anyone know where a pirated version can be found?

[Richard Bruns]

If you have a modern computer, then the original CD game probably won't run very well anyway. There is a windows version that I could send you. Just tell me if the e-email in your profile is correct.

Edit: Why is that icon there? I can't change it to the normal one either...
[This message has been edited by Richard Bruns (edited April 25, 2001).]

[Father Beast]

I just had a time when there was a very large ship spotted by my north american base, and I didn't go after it, because the last time I sent an iterceptor after one, it got shot down.

So the very large ship lands in chicago and starts terrorizing. I send my troops in, because I figure with 2 tanks, they should be okay.

Silly me. There's 2 kinds of aliens there. some big as a tank ugly ones, and these tall purple fellows. I killed a couple of each (man, takes a lot of hits with rifles to kill one of those big suckers), when on the same turn 2 of those big aliens jumped out and squashed my tanks! I figured I was in over my head and got everyone out of there. my score went down, but I didn't lose any soldiers.

was I really in over my head, do you think?

[Urban Ranger]

Since you aren't facing Snakeman - you'll know, their terrorists the Chrysslads (sp?) are the nastiest baddies in the game - you are probably facing some ethereals. They are bad news.

There are ways to take out those tank beasts though: stay in doors and shoot them through doors only 1 wide. They can't get through to you, and you can basically butcher these nasties.

You don't go after a big ship with a single skyranger. It sounds like either a battleship or a terror ship. Avoid battleships at all costs, and go after terror ships with multiple fighter crafts (no less than 3 preferrably). Standoff until all fighters arrive, than attack at the same time.

[Urban Ranger]

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 04-25-2001 05:58 PM A well equipped base has two fully staffed labs, at least three living quarters, a hyperwave scanner, a defense rating over 3000, a grav shield and mind shield, several alien containments and general stores, a psi lab or two, and three hangers with two Firestorms and an Avenger.

Depending on the type of base you have. I guess the second base can be a hanger base with just a couple of skyrangers and a general store in the beginning. You just have to be careful with their scouts. Shoot all of them down if possible, since that will prevent the aliens from sending in retaliation missions.

[Urban Ranger]

No idea, they seem to be quite wimpy as far as terrorists go. My rookies had a high success rate with autocannons against Reavers.

[Urban Ranger]

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 04-25-2001 08:41 AM According to the numbers in the UFOpedia, laser pistols have a power and fire rate, and accuracy equivalent to an auto-cannon. I make about six of these pistols while researching laser rifles, and they seem to do wonders for my ability to kill aliens. Are those numbers wrong?

No. Just different playing style. DO whatever you feel comfortable.