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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Advice on a hard battle


DamnSectoids

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Greetings all

 

I'm in a bit of a tough situation and need some advice on how to proceed

 

In the first week of a new game I face having to clear out some apartment tower block with only four troops (the rest being injured due to stupid errors).

 

I also made the mistake of not restarting until my base was more central because as soon as the first horde of UFO's invaded they dropped and ran before my men got there, giving me a large amount of clean up, and thusly leading to my injured troops!

 

Is it normal in the first week on beginner to be facing 5-6 spitters plus 2 anthros and 2 multiworms and about 10 hyperworms plus eggs in the first week in one battle if your careless?

 

I'd like to deal with the situation without losses, is this feasable? If not I'll have to deal with it :-(

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Damnsectoids

Edited by DamnSectoids
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Don't worry about where your bases are - worry about the type of base or the shape of the interior corridors. You can park your aircraft in any building in the city for free, so you can have a more centrally located airbase, or spread out small teams of ships around the city to cover more of the gates as they move. Plenty of choices. Ships only need to land at a base to rearm, drop recovered loot and to use the base's repair bay if needed.

 

How many enemies you fight might depend on the type of the transport in addition to what difficulty level you are on. The type 3 alien transport for example does carry a fair amount of aliens. Leaving the drop site to fester for a while (that is, ignorning it) may also introduce a few more aliens as the worms mature.

 

My recommendation is a very common one I give out. Watch where the aliens drop their troops, mark those buildings (I like to park hoverbikes at them) and then immediately send a ground team in to investigate. Clear each of the sites, and for the next few hours keep updating your top-10 infiltration graph to see if the infiltration in the surrounding buildings are getting strong. There will always be a bit of infiltration around the drop sites. If there's any alarming rise in activity, search for buildings owned by the affected organization near the drop sites (go to the overhead map, then select the organization icon) , and investigate them. After clear, repeat this process over again until infiltration graph levels start to drop off naturally. (Don't forget to send your marker vehicles home if you still have them parked. )

 

This way you won't have lots of random callouts throughout the day, and will overall deal with fewer battles.

 

To keep your injuries down, you might need to start watching how you move your troops better. Use cover more, kneel or go prone, smoke grenades, etc. If you're playing real-time, use corners to your advantage by letting aliens come round the corner or through a door and go right into a full-auto ambush (or power swords, or stun grapples). Stay out of prolonged firefights in big open areas and if possible lure the enemy into close range as you'll be able to hit them a lot better, etc, etc.

 

- NKF

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Thanks for the swift reply NKF, im glad someone like you is still active around here!

 

I think im just going to have to be more careful

 

Disrupters have just made it into my game im finding duel wielding them with plasma guns

to be very effective!

 

I still have trouble downing their craft though and up until now have relied on swarms of hoverbikes with some hover cars,

they just seem to get outclassed by the time type 3 and 4 UFO's come around, nevermind type 5+!

 

Short of saving up for the hawk air warrior is there anything else i can do to achieve air superiority? At least until i can research the hybrid types anyway

 

Damnsectoids

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Using swarms or smaller wings of heavy ships, or a mix of them. They'll all work. You just have to find the method that works best for you.

 

One suggestion I have is to not try to get them all at first at let some go. Do a slow build up rather than try and shoot everything down. Besides, from a practical point of view, you don't have a lot of ships to begin with, so going all out every time a UFO comes in will often leave you spending more money on replacing lost ships.

 

You can make up for not shooting down the UFOs by making sure you do well in the ground missions.

 

What you do need to do is capture at least one of each type of UFO you encounter. So it may be better to concentrate your efforts on one type of ship, shoot it down as quickly as you can, then immediately break off from combat so that you don't get pummelled when the other ships finally link up. If you can find any easy targets that you can shoot down with minimal damage, take them down, otherwise play it safe and stay out of their firing range and watch where the transports deploy their troops.

 

The type-3 transport is one you should probably put the most effort in at first. Later on, you may want to capture a Fast Attack Ship as well, though they tend to be one of the harder ships to shoot down at first. As you build up your fleet, and get better tech, you can start taking the offensive.

 

Of course, playing defensively like this is not the only way to play the game. But I find it works for me. ;)

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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currently giving your advice on caution a go, and i think its working fairly well so thank you :)

 

I'm trying to research the advanced labs now, would you consider them top priority over all else?

 

Do the toxi guns and ammo require the larger workshop to construct?

 

Thanks again

 

Damnsectoids

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Depends on what you want I guess, but you'll need the large facilities in due course, and having double the manpower in each one does help.

 

Manufacturing wise, toxiguns can be built in the small workshop.

 

- NKF

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