Allying With Organizations

[Caboose]

I just got this game off of Steam and I haven't played it in many years.

 

I was wondering if you get any benefits from allying with certain organizations? Ally/friendly, does it help in any way except, well, just relationship-wise?

[[NKF]]

Well, there are some organizations that provide some services to you as long as they are non-hostile. Most of the others don't really provide any benefits. Off the top of my head:

 

The government funds you.

 

Megapol will shoot at UFOs and sometimes against vehicles owned by organizations that are hostile towards them (or you). Being hostile with them means police hovercars will start attacking your ships.

 

Any organization that sells you items will only sell you goods when you are non-hostile.

 

Being in good standings with the Mutant Alliance and S. E. L. F allow hybrids and androids to become available for hire. Even then the probability of new troops of either race becoming available is up to the daily random number generator roll, so don't worry if none of them show up right away.

 

Transtellar offer taxis for transferring your staff and delivery vehicles when transferring goods from one base to another. If you're hostile with them, you get to walk and transfer goods manually. New staff also have to walk rather than get their complimentary taxi to work.

 

I think that covers it. Most of the others like the political parties, Evonet, Gravball League, Sensovision, Nutrivend, the gangs (other than Diablo), etc don't provide immediate benefits apart from not attacking your base when they aren't hostile.

 

- NKF

[Caboose]

Thanks, NKF. You're the man!

[Gimli]

Whatever you do, do NOT lose Marsec to the Aliens. Especially if it happens before you shoot down and recover UFO type 3. If you check the buy screen you will see that a lot of equipment comes from them, and you will not have access to them anymore. And since UFO type 3 is required to get your own airborne vehicles which can enter the alien dimension, your chances of beating the game at that point can easily go down to zero.

 

**SPOILER!!!**

 

I am speaking from experience here, Marsec allied with the Aliens shortly after I shot down the type 3 UFO. I eventually got to the Biotrans, but even with that, it was heck. They were my last chance, so I started manufacturing a fleet of them. At one point the aliens arrived with a different kind of mission, razing down buildings. My fleet was not up to the task of facing them, which is why I had played for months (game-time) without shooting any of them down. As I recall, one of the ships was the Mothership (!!!), which can take a some time to knock down even with better ships and weapons. I only had some 15 Biotranses, a Valkyrie and a Hoverbike. The Valkyrie had the Lancer 7000, the Hoverbike the Bolter 4000 and the Biotranses had the Laser Defense Arrays (one of the worst weapons imaginable). But this time they attacked the wrong organization. Can't remember which one it was, but it pulled out a huge fleet, with every type of airborne vehicle you could get from Marsec. I didn't think it would do any use, but then I noticed that they were doing actual damage to it, and I saw this as my only chance for a long time to come. Pulled out everything I had and sent at the Mothership. Mind you, excluding the Valkyrie and the Hoverbike, which do not contribute a whole lot to the total damage being done, I was basically relying on the Biotranses. Which had the Laser Defense Array. A little comparison:

 

Damage

 

Laser Defense Array - 8

Bolter 4000 - 12

Lancer 7000 - 16

 

Range

 

Laser Defense Array - 64m

Bolter 4000 - 200m

Lancer 7000 - 300m

 

But with so many Biotranses, it still made a difference, and the Mothership started losing hitpoints faster and eventually went down. I almost cried from happiness. I got the small disruptor beam and the rest was easy.

 

**SPOILER**

 

Anyway, to reiterate, do not lose Marsec. Trust me.

[[NKF]]

What difficulty was this on? On Superhuman, I seem to recall that the capital ships needed a minimum of Medium disrupters for any significant damage. Anything weaker just took too long to whittle the damage down. I had a large fleet of Explorers empty all their Lineage Plasma cannons without making too big a dent to a Battleship's hitpoints. That probably just means I wasn't using enough!

 

Also were you manually firing the laser defence guns? They won't normally fire on anything but missiles unless under manual control. They're absolutely brilliant for rapidly smashing shields, but probably aren't too hot against the actual UFO hulls. However they are great at obliterating enemy vehicles (particularly the larger Hawks) that are just coming out of launch tubes.

 

If Marsec is under full alien control, could you possibly recover them momentarily by attacking one of their enemies and then buy up some ships and weapons before they go back to being hostile by attacking the aliens? Very risky, you might make more enemies than you'd want. Worse, the cycle would just escalate until you'll always have half of the city against you and half of the city for you - just swapping sides at your convenience (i.e. attacking one side to get the other side back - repeat ad nauseum). The base raids by enemy organizations would be a killer though.

 

- NKF

Edited September 8, 2008 by NKF

[SSV]

Once I fall in similar situation. Instead bykes I used dimension probe, it has similar characteristic and can be armed with plasma multisystem or autocannon.

Eventually after I attacked Marsec building time by time it become no hostile. Then I bought full stock of Vehicles and Marsec become ally (for short time certainly)

[Gimli]

Sorry NKF, didn't see your post. Yes, I suppose it's possible that it only seemed like the Battleship was going down faster. But it doesn't really matter, because it fell eventually, whether or not I helped the organization.

 

As for Marsec, yes and that eventually happened. I totally forgot about that aspect of the game, because I normally don't need it. What happened was that soon after this I started taking down the buildings in the alien dimension. My success caused the aliens to send a lot of ships in response, and amidst all the chaos (there were what? 15-20 alien ships? I don't remember anymore) I noticed Marsec went allied with me and immediately got all the things I needed (torso component of the Marsec armor!).

 

This reminds me though, someone mentioned a problem of not shooting down the type 3 UFO. Does anyone know what would get the aliens to do one of those big fleet attacks? Is it only a response to activity in the alien dimension, or could taking down a lot of UFOs in Megaprimus result in the same thing?

[[NKF]]

Type-3s seem to stop entering the city after a while, so if you've never captured one you will never get the Dimension Probe. Since the Dim. Probe is required for pretty much all the other advanced ships, you'd be stuck in Mega Primus for quite some time to the point where restarting the game would be quicker.

 

The mass fleet attack, also coined as the Apocalypse mission. It seems to be against a few select targets in the city rather than mindless destruction, which would've been cooler!.

 

You don't have to be doing particularly well in the alien dimension for it to happen. I think the aliens just hit a point where you're doing so well that they decide to just throw their ships at a number of targets in the city. I'm pretty sure it's an event that'll happen after the cityscape music changes for the worse. That plus your continual good efforts against the aliens. I think J'Ordos and his amazing game tool might be of some assistance for the particulars.

 

Note that if you're really aggressive with air combat in the alien dimension (i.e. you wipe out the fleet regularly), you'll probably never ever see the Apocalypse mission.

 

- NKF

Edited September 17, 2008 by NKF

[Kandycore]

I think you get more soldiers avalible for hire if you are friendly with the gangs. Can't confirm this tho.

 

( Perhaps more scientists if you are friends with the nerdier orgs? )

[[NKF]]

From my own observation, I haven't noticed any change in the hire pool by being allied to any particular organizations - except the ones related to the androids and hybrids. It just builds up naturally as you play.

 

Humans (and techs) are always available. Your hire list is randomized every day. It doesn't seem like much at the start, but as you keep playing the list will expand as new recruits are added to the list (occasionally older ones get dropped off the list) . If you don't like what you see, you can wait until the next day, or reload to a save made the day before and try your luck until you find the numbers of troops or someone with the stats that appeal to you.

 

- NKF

[Slip de Garcon]

Yesterday, for some random reason, I managed to buy an alliance with the Cult of Sirius, quite late in the game!

 

Usually they will not take money, but having a few spare dollars (well, $1.6 billion), I gave it a go. Odd.

[[NKF]]

Odd indeed. Did they ask for the cash, or were you able to offer them the cash?

 

Normally once a company hits the stage where they'll no longer accept bribes, they're stuck there for good unless they request for a bribe themselves. Same goes with when they get infiltrated. Must've been some really weird internal politics going on there!

 

- NKF

[Slip de Garcon]

I don't know if they ever were refusing money in this game, but I've NEVER had the CoS take a bribe before.

[andrewl]

I think allying with the mutant alliance gets you more hybrids earlier.

[[NKF]]

As long as you're non-hostile with either Mutant Alliance or SELF, hybrids and androids will appear. Apart from that, their appearance on the list of new agents for hire is purely random. Androids unfortunately seem to have an even lower probability of appearing than hybrids.

 

Mind you, not discounting the possibility that the level of allegiance influences the probabilities of them appearing. Always good to be friendly with either party.

 

- NKF