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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

The Official XCOM1 base designs Thread


Guest stewart

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Guest stewart
Okay, I'll start off with an incredibly long-winded post.

To start I have two styles of play. One is the kill a lot of guys, use only certain equipment and ignor most of the research approach. The other is one where I try to save money, keep my soldiers alive, and place artificial restrictions on the research tree (basically everything must be researched for some reason).

Regardless of which style I am using, my bases still go in the same places and have the same functions (just their floor-plans will vary). In the reckless approach the only base defense I use is one missile defense for my choke-point and (when available) a mind shield. For the other making-it-hard-on-myself approach I assume that as an invading UFO takes damage it potentially reduces the size of the invading crew (ie I use base defense).

In either approach the following two bases are used. Note: in these drawings, lightly colored facilites are new while dark ones are already existing (this includes dirt BTW). Red facilities are defense facilities, Green are general facilites, Blue are special facilites, and Yellow is the Acess Lift.

The Radar Post is my first base in a new region. These bases are cheap and give me "eyes" all over the world quickly. Initially, the continent they are on is protected by aircraft from anouther base. Next, they upgrade to the Small Airbase, when local defense is required.
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Guest stewart
It seems that only one image/post is how it is. Sorry I'll have to multipost.

The small airbase forms the core of all my bases in both styles of play. I won't bother showing plans for my bases for my reckless style (since I don't have any) because they are pretty much no-brainers that you can improvise. The only restrictions to keep in mind is that you can only have 255 engineers and 255 scientists at any one base, and only 255 living soldiers in all of XCOM.

The bases that do reuqire thought are the ones for my make-it-hard-on-myself approach. A couple things to note about that. First under my artificial research restriction, I must research the corresponding laser weapon for a particular plasma weapon first, I must reasearch plasma defense before fusion defense. Hyperwave decoder requires research of all informative items that are found in its reports (missions, UFOs, races). You must research an aliens corpse first before interogation (unless you use a medics report). Psionic requires the research of all aliens first. Okay under these conditions I made my base designs.

Since I'm assuming the base defense can reduce the invading crew size I calculate the number of defenses needed as follows:

(BattleshipHitpoint-TheChokePointMissileDefensePower*ItsChanceToHit)/(BaseDefensePower*ItsChanceToHit)

rounded up.

Basically:
12 Missile Defense then 8 Laser Defense + 1 Missile then 5 Plasma + 1 Missile then 2 Fusion (with GravShield, 3 without but then it's replaced anyway) + 1 Missile.

My starting Base goes it Sofia Bulgaria, it's my research base. Here's how it evolves. The question mark means a free space.

When building the Missile Defense version place two general stores next to the lower Hangar. This allows you to build faster. Remove them later to create the choke point.

The first upgrade doubles your lab space, with any luck you'll be ready stop the inflitration missions when they start showing up.

The second upgrade occurs when you are about ready to start building your own UFOs. So an extra Hangar is added.

In the final form the Labs and Alien Containments are replaced by Workshops and Living Quarters.
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Guest stewart
Next, my Depots. They are located in Bolivia, South America (which services: North America, Africa, and the South Pole) and Chung King, China (which services (Australia, Europe, and the North Pole). My bases locally hold enough for one resupply. The resupply of the resupply though is serviced from the depots. This gets the stuff there faster than actually purchasing it. Therefore all purchases and storage of captured stuff not for sale is made through the depots.

Depots are simple, with each upgrade more space is available.

You'll note that in all my bases, regardless of their function, the final forms all have at least one Psionic Laboritory.
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Guest stewart
Next, Factories. One factory with 255 engineers is really all you need, but I build two. First, in case I lose one and second during expansion you need more money. The factories go in Kansas and Alice Springs, Australia.

Note: when building the Missile Defense version, as with the Missile Defense version of the Research Base, build temporary General Stores next to the lower Hangar. This allows you to build the base fast. Remember to remove them later to create the choke point.
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Guest stewart
Next, are my Large Airbases (what some call Strike Bases). Here is where my transports eventually end up. Both of these bases are place at each pole. This takes advantage of the pathfinding algorythm the game uses makeing interceptions follow great circle routes more closely. These base also carry attack aircraft to "double cover" their respective hemispheres.

In all cases one Hangar is kept free. This way when aircraft at other bases get damaged they are swapped with identical aircraft stationed at the polar bases. This somewhat reduces the effect of repair times. So as you can see the amount of aircraft stationed begins at two and rises to four. Note the Alien Containment in all but the final form of the base. Captured aliens are transfered to the European Labs for study. But eventually all research stops (hense no Alien Containment in the final base).

The Psionic Laboratory is located on the "wrong" side of the choke point; oh well, what are you gonna do? There's a chance a soldier may be stationed there; stick him upstairs and have him hold out; what else can you do?
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Guest stewart
The remaining base is stationed in Congo. It purpose is to hire and fire lots of soldiers in order to find those with Psionic Strength at a desired level. Of course until you have Psionics you want the base to do SOMETHING. So it begins as a combined Depot/Factory. Once you've found all your soldiers if you decide you don't want to hire/fire anymore you can always change it back too.

Anyway here 'tis.
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  • 2 months later...
Guest mike[F]
Wow, you've obviously put a huge amount of thought into these designs, and I have to say I can see the logic in a lot of them!

You also really obviously HATE fighting in your base, you must have 4-5000 defence strength at each stage!

Still, wonderful designs, an inspiration for us all ;)

Mike
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Guest stewart
The logic for defense rating is this:

Battleships have 3000 hit points. I try to have my [i]effective[/i] defense rating as near to this as possible without being under. I define the effective defense of a facility as it's power multipled by it's to-hit percentage. The reasons for this defense level are:
1) I assume that for each hit the battleship takes it has a chance of reducing the size of the invading squad.
2) I actually [b]do[/b] want to be invaded so future attempts will not be made. This is why I don't throw in even more defense.

Since facilities vary wildly in both of their statistics the displayed defense rating (the summation of just the power level of each facility) will also vary wildly. I haven't examined how the gravity and mind shields affect the displayed defense rating.

A lot of the "logic" in these design also derive from the artificial restrictions I myself place on the research tree. If I played the game just by IT's rules, I would, for example, not bother with Laser and Plasma defenses. With regards to base defenses the artificial restriction I iimpose are: Fusion defense requires Plasma defense which requires Laser defense. So that explains why they are there.

Your right; I've spent TOO much time thinking about bases. So obviously I'd be very keen to talk about them. If there's anything else you don't understand or agree with I'd be litterally glad to talk about it.
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Well, I have been wondering about something that has to do with this: if a Battleship has 3000 damagepoints, is it then destroyed when base defense does 3001 damage or more, or will it 'just' crash? If the latter is true, when is it destroyed, if over 6000 damage is done to it? If the former is true, at what damage will it crash?
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Guest stewart
Believe it or not earlier. I've had Battleships be shot down after recieving just two Fusion hits (that's less than it's number of hit points).

There maybe some kind of "critical hit" thing in the damage-to-UFOs algorythm.
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Yes, that would make sense. That way you could end up damaging the rest of the ship first and finally the engine or navigation parts which cause it to crash.
If this is true, then this also means that a ufo is destroyed (without anything left to crash) if more than 3000 damage is done in case of a battleship.
And this would also mean that a slight hit with ie a fbl could leave a medium scout intact enough to crash, although highly unlikely....
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  • 2 months later...
Guest stewart
Remember though that invading invasion missions (as opposed to scouting/trying-to-find-your-base invasion missions) are always carried out by Battleships, so a medium scout will never be shot @ by Fusion Defense. Even the "least damaging" attack on a Battleship that still shoots it down leaves no recoverable wreckage; the game does say "UFO destroyed". This might be explained this way:

@ 5k knots, the Battleship is the second fastest craft in the game (the Avenger is fastest @ 5.4 k knots). When invading the Battleship does not slow down, it stays @ 5k knots all the way up to your base. So the UFO is destroyed because it plows into the ground at this speed. Of course it would be easy to poke holes in this arguement, but the actual reason for the UFOs being destroyed (for game mechanics reasons) is less satisfactory.
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I was thinking more along the lines of the alien commander has the responsibility to never let a battleship land in enemy hands, therefore, if it is shot down in a base attack, they self-destruct. Of course, this probably won't work since the other battleships don't self-destruct.

That Mind Shield that you put in your base would seem to be bad for you. You said that you wanted aliens to invade, so that future attempts wouldn't be made. I'm not too sure how this works, but I think the mind shield doesn't actually provide any sort of defense, rather it cloaks or camoflauges the brain activity of the people in the base, hiding it from attack. Now, that could help you in your final goal of not getting attacked, but as far as getting invaded so the invasions stop, it might cause fewer invasions.
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Guest stewart
I should clarify.

Once my base is found out, I want to be invaded, to get it over with. The game will invade over and over and over and over and over and over . . . . until they get the base or you beat them back.

The mind shield reduces the number of times your base is spotted.
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  • 7 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
Two problems I have with you're amazeing base designs.

1) what do you do with the extrodanarally crappy automatic design of your inital base? Personally I edit it. After all I don't really think it's cheating to rework the drunken monkey design that they stick you with. After all if the aliens do get through your defences they can attack from 4 different locations. They have you surrounded from the hangers and a squad can go down through the AL as well which is cunningly located in the middle of your base.

2) How do you allow for the evolution of your inital base, which lets face it should be somewhere in europe or north america and needs to be at least reasonably good at everything for the first 2 or 3 months before you can start building well established secondary bases? Personally I hate dismantleing facilities unless the upkeep is so high that I'm not getting my moneys worth. The overall stratagy for my first couple bases at least is as follows.

My first base is located in europe on the french german boarder. It's a generalist. Capable of doing anything to a limited degree. This way if I loose a base my HQ can pick up the slack and allow for limited research or manufactureing untill a new base can be built.

Second base is located in North America and is primarally concerned with manufacturing.

third is in Japan and does my research

the fouth takes over for europe as a primary strike base and is generally located in one of the poles.

Beyond that I increase my numbers of intercept bases and listening posts. Once I get psi tech I generally create a training base or two as well. Edited by imperialus
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Actually when I play, I play SuperHuman starting with "no" base and only the 6 Megadollars or so you get in funding before "Decembers" expenses. By the way go over the expenses of Dec98; they're wrong!

Of course with bad luck I can get the project cancelled by Feb. but then it's short game and I can start again.

Honestly starting this way ain't that bad (if you can survive Jan99) it keeps you from expanding too fast so you have automatic budget constraint built-in as it were.

As the guy on "Art Attack" says, "Try it yourself".

BTW good N. Hemisphere strategy!
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  • 2 months later...
I think the initial design is just fine. I base the design of all my 7 other bases on the first one. It's got air lock in the center so the base can be build up in all direction and you can have the base completely built in just couple months without wasting money on general storage in order to get to some spots. Besides I use all 36 slots of a base, of all 8 of my bases.

As for the invading aliens it's all fine when you section your air lock and hangers off like that but unless you have the fusion ball technology there's no reason to do your base defense like that, cause it just takes longer to get to the aliens, and if the ethereal attack you, you want to get to them as fast as possible, lest them mind control all your guys.

What's the most amount of fusion ball defense hits a battleship ever took before went down? One time in TFTD a dreadnaught took 8 hits from PWT defenses before it was destroyed, even though usually it takes around 4 to 6 hits to destroy. I don't think in UFO defense the battleships are so tough, but it's been a while since I've had a battleship attacking me. 3-4 hits maybe? Edited by Hexeon
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If it works for you great! Personally I avoid central located lifts I find it's too easy to spend yourself broke that way; building fast isn't that important for me. Using all 36 squares is impresive. I've found that the 6x6x8 facilites the game provides for is way more than enough though, so I don't mind having "dirt: facilites. You should post some of your base defenses in the descibe-your-mission forums!

As for fusion I have gone 10 hits. Now I don't try to keep them out just hurt them a bit before they come in.
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Hi. My base defense is basically lots of spare tanks (4-8 usually) plus like around 20 soldiers. Laser tanks mostly. Expendable and I can just sell them anytime I want. Later on I replace them with hovertanks, but it takes a lot of Elerium to do this for all 8 bases, and I usually end up only able to replace half of the laser tanks cause I need the Elerium to make power suit (not enough to give flying suit to rookies) and keep the crafts up and running. Sometimes I can only give rookies personal armor.

I try to have like 4 Avengers in each base (my first base has only 3 sub pens cause I need the space for storage and stuff), each equipped with 2 fusion beams that's a lot of Elerium needed to arm and refuel them all, plus need an Elerium reserve at each base. So that's 31 Avengers plus 62 fusion beams. Usually this can't be done until the end of 1999 on superhuman no reload, with reload it can be done around July.

Sometimes I go soldier crazy and get like, 60 soldiers in each base, 60x8=480 soldiers total, plus like 10 tanks, a mix of laser and hover tanks. But those soldiers don't all show up for some reason. Anyone else has this problem? In UFO defense soldiers don't die as fast, in TFTD I tend to keep a larger reserve of soldiers. A lot of equip don't show up either, so I only keep what's needed in storage now. You really only need 20 to 30 soldiers in each base though.
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IIRC the amount of combatants/equipment in battlescape is fixed. So, if the aliens are gonna hit one of your bases put like 100 soldiers there and I think you might only get a couple aliens showing up. I'm not sure about this though. Perhaps NKF would know for sure.
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[quote name='Robo Dojo 58' date='Feb 11 2004, 11:58 AM'][quote]So that's 31 Avengers plus 62 fusion beams.[/quote]
Wow, that's a pretty nice fleet you got there. Why don't you just bomb Cydonia from orbit, instead of doing the last two missions? :explode: [/quote]
Apparently aliens have thousands of battleships so I can't do that :blink:
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JSAllison, seems that you use access lift the same way stewart uses missile defense. What is your defensive strategies in these maps? Waiting in the small room in the access lift?
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[quote name='stewart' date='Feb 11 2004, 09:54 AM']IIRC the amount of combatants/equipment in battlescape is fixed.  So, if the aliens are gonna hit one of your bases put like 100 soldiers there and I think you might only get a couple aliens showing up.  I'm not sure about this though.  Perhaps NKF would know for sure.[/quote]
Well, let's see, there's an absolute limit to 80 units in the battlescape, so I would suspect that when beginning the battle, both sides get an equal upper limit of 40 units per side. The aliens never get that high a number of units on superhuman. Even so, it appears you're still stuck to your limit. So, to answer your question, no, lots of soldiers will not reduce alien numbers.

Note that large terror units and HWPs always take up 4 of these slots. So if you have 10 HWPs stored in that base, don't ever hope of having any of your soldiers spawn in combat (tanks are generated first, then soldiers, in the order of their appearance in the unit roster).

Interesting note: if on a previous attack you dealt too much damage to one of your base modules and ended up concatenting the whole base excapt the access lift and hangar (say you blew up the choke point), you'll probably note that all the base modules where your soldiers start will have been wiped out completely. If the base is attacked immediately afterwards, you'll find that your soldiers will start spawning in alien spawn locations (basically the reverse of what happens when you don't provide enough alien entry points).

- NKF

P. S: Losing a base module doesn't necessarily mean you lose what used to live there or whatever equipment was there. The only thing that you'll probably lose would be any contained aliens, and you'd cease research/building, but otherwise, you won't lose staff, equipment or ships. Edited by NKF
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  • 5 months later...
I usually try to get my hangars in the top of the base, with only the access lift touching them... Seems to be enough for most situations, since the default starting base really is quite a headache to defend...

Nice strategies though, I'll be sure to try them next time I play ^_^
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  • 1 month later...
To me, putting in defenses AND sectioning off your base seems rather counter-productive and expensive.

There's only two times I would put defenses on a base..

a: For manufacturing, research (science or psi), or Radar bases. I will put the access lift where-ever is fastest for my build order. IE - Hyperwave decoder first, then whatever else on each other side. These bases do not contain attack aircraft so it is unlikely that the aliens will find them, and therefor attack them. In the case that they do find one and happen to attack it, you should get a high defense rating on that base AFTER it is up and fully operational. Usually, 2 grav shields, a mind shield, and 4 fusion ball launchers should do the trick. Or maybe mix in Plasma and fusion ball, as I think Plasma has better accuracy. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Either way, there is no need for soldiers defending the base as it is a waste of funds. The base itself is already expensive enough and if you have a high defense value and low detectability, there is no need to create choke points. If I'm wrong, just tell me that your radar bases have ever been successfully invaded and I'll think twice before leaving one undefended. Otherwise, as I said, it's ineffecient.

b: For my initial base, because the initial design is so flawed and it is a waste of time and money to rebuild it. I will place high defenses and a mediocre operability in each area.. Manufacturing, research, psi, defense, strike, etc.. A well rounded base works perfectly well. That way, if they attack me, there is a chance they will get knocked out of the air, and there is also a chance they will land and I will have to fend off my base. Either way, I have my crack troops at this base, the best weapons, and I also have the versitility of being able to research and develope just about anything, albiet a little slower than a specialized base.

On the other hand, in the case of a strike base.. I find it very effective to have 3 hangers: Firestorm for close range defense, Interceptor for longer ranged defense against everything but battleships, and a skyranger for dispatching, along with about 14-20 soldiers, proper choke points, and a stockload of Proximity mines, blaster bombs, and heavy plasmas, in the case that my base does get attacked (which it will, and often.) The balance to this is as mentioned above when they do attack my strike bases and I whoop their asses due to my base layout, they will not come back for a while.

Another thing to note is that on a strike base you do not need ANY research, but it is wise to have living quarters and workshop space for 50 engineers so that you can produce fusion bombs for your strike craft and maybe some HWP's.

Why skyrangers and not avengers? Well.. Skyranger only has really 1 downside to the Avenger: It's not a strike craft.. But it has a long range, patrols, and carries a sufficient amount of soldiers.. The Interceptor and Firestorm can defend the area well enough if used properly. (Don't send interceptors against battleships, and don't send firestorms against anything outside of your reach.). I only like to have 2 Avengers at the most.. They go through elerium like crazy and they take FOREVER to repair. A Firestorm with 2 Plasma Beams can USUALLY take down a battleship.

The point is: Having Defensive weapondry in your base units, as well as laying out your base for "Choke points" is very very ineffecient and excessively expensive.

As far as location goes, here's what I prefer:

1: Europe start base. (Well rounded)
2: USA Strike base
3 OR 4: Australia Strike base (Or radar)
3, 4 OR 5: South America Radar base (or Strike, depends on alien activity)
4 OR 5: East Asia Radar Base
6: Africa Radar Base
7: South pole "depot"
8: North pole "depot"

Why?

Well, Start base, for obvious reasons.. USA strike base because I seriously need to defend that side of the planet, by the time I can afford the base.. Australia strike base because by that time I have hyperwave decoder and I have the majority of the globe covered by radar with Australia... Atleast enough to cover MOST of the funded countries (with the exception of maybe Japan and Russia, but it's never posed a problem.) Australia may seem remote, which it is.. Which is why I select there.. It's a funding country and is it's own continent, and you can cover some of the south pole and some of south Asia with a base there.

After I have my 2 strike bases and "Main Base", I start laying down small radar bases to cover each continent, then I start building depots in remote places.. They act as radar coverage, and by this time in the game you may have lost some funding and need a steady income of millions of dollars, but have the money to spare for hundreds of engineers and the initial building of the base..

The only thing I think about this that may be optional is the strike base being in Australia.. It just works for me in some of my games, if I am seeing more activity in south america, I would put it there instead.. Or possibly convert south america to a strike base instead of simply a radar base.. again, depends on the activity I am recieving in the area and how hard it is for me to keep up with the aliens.

Also, I don't quite understand the point of creating an entire base devoted to researching projects. Why? My initial base usually has 2 labs and enough living quarters for 100 scientist.. 100 scientist can usually research just about anything quickly enough for my liking. If not, I am sure 150 could, and you could still fit it in the same initial base. What is the point of having a base with 255 scientist researching so quickly that by the time your base is completely built, all of your research will be done and it's time to convert the base or deconstruct it?

Sorry about the book. :devillaugh:
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Woah, NFK.. Are you saying that if on a base invasion mission you blasterbomb the shuckeroonies out of one of your base modules it will effect the status of that module on the Geoscape or only for the next time the mission occurs?! And, if so, what is the effect?

Like, can you actually destroy items in your inventory (say, a corpse of an alien, ellerium, alien alloys, etc)?
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Well, since some items in the stores are lying on the floor, yes, you can destroy those...

As per base design, I now design my strike bases with only one choke point, even for the main base, it's the smart thing to do...
Aside from a missile defense or two (as choke points), I wait until I can put 3-5 Fusion defenses (and grav shield if possible) before relaxing my standing grrisons of 15-20 soldiers in my 2-3 strike bases (usually US/China/France)

Oh, and you NEED 3 hangars in order to put choke points, otherwise the aliens can spawn behind your back, wich is bad...

And Skyrangers are Lame IMO... Far too SLOW to reach a landed UFO except when it's already on the same continent, or to get back when the main base is under attack... It takes forever to fuel up, costs 500 000$ a MONTH (and I prefer to balance my budget a bit).
Even a Lightning (with plasma cannon) is better, it can carry lots of rookies in power armor to train up on easy missions, until you get 2-3 avengers, which are enough for pretty much everything, if you have 3-4 Firestorms and 3-4 interceptors in backup...
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Sure I can, but I actually have far less Elirium problems in Superhuman than at beginner... There's SO much big UFOs to scavenge/assault...
Just gotta be carefull with what you do...
and DON'T use explosives near UFO power sources... :hammer:
That's what Stun bombs are for... :D
I'm practically swimming in Elirium since I don't have to manufacture amno... (I actually sell HP clips if I have more than 100), and fusion balls are a pure waste of Elirium, while Plasma cannons rule... :rock:
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I suppose it's a matter of preference, but as I stated in my post, I still always have 1-2 Avengers for long range expeditions, but keep a skyranger in most of my strike bases later in the game because they will usually only be going on close range missions.. ie - if I am in north america and have an avenger sitting in europe, I just send them on different missions..

Oh, and I agree about plasma cannons.. I found my Lightning with 2 plasmacannons was more successful at taking down battleships than my avenger with 1 plasma and 1 fusion. Edited by EtherImp
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Well, skyrangers cost maintenance Money, wich I need not to get shut down... The Elirium problem I can live with, not being shut down :D

Tehn again, Plasma cannons rule, because fusion have the same range as Battleships anyway, and they only get 3 puny shots... Plasma cannons outrange any other UFO, so it's a moot point...
And you have to manufacture the damn fusion balls, wich takes a heck of a lot more Elirium than it's worth (except for base defenses, those are great :D)

TWO plasma on a lightning??
What kind of a cheat is that???
Besides, as long as you don't pitch your lightning against a Batlleship, you don't NEED two weapons on it...
And yes a Firestorm with two plasmas is pretty efficient, just bring 2-3 if you want them to survive a battleship...

I take on Battleships with Interceptors with plasma cannons... Of course they have a loss rate between 0 and 50% of the interceptors, but with one or two squads of 3 Interceptors on standard attack (so tehy won't backoff :D), it's feasible until you get the Firestorm...
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:D
Seriously though, I just hate things that cost that much per month, because If I run on low funds, The maintenance will kill me... Of course, it's easier on superhuman, but still... It costs as much as a base to hold a skyranger.
Let's just say I prefer to minimise the gap between my monthly revenue and maintenance... I can still whallop in zillions of loot for day to day cash... :LOL: Edited by Paladin
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