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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Vehicles And Their Weapons - First Three Weeks


Pherdnut

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In the first week, laser cannons are king, IMO. When you take their rate of fire into account, they do more damage than any of the missiles, cost nothing for ammunition, and do minimal property damage when they hit buildings. Rendors are better but are overkill and a waste of elerium at this stage of the game. I like keeping the Valkyrie because it's fast and the large Bolters have a signifigantly longer range, making it great for chasing down UFOs that are a little out of your way. I always put the best possible engines in my cars and purchase all available targetting systems always until I run out of space on my ships or get the advanced targetting systems.

 

Seriously though, try the lasers out. I used to stick with Janitors in the first week and was really impressed with how much faster the lasers took UFOs down and the extra money you get from selling all those Janitor systems really gives you a leg up in the early game. I've frequently kicked things off with 5 cars and the Valkyrie after my initial all cult temple raid.

 

Sunday night of week 1, I usually buy enough Prophet Missile Systems and all the missiles I can afford. If I have cash left over, I'll buy all the Justice missiles I can for week 3. That way, when fast attack ships show up in week 2, I can switch my hovercars up to the Prophets so they can continue firing on caution attack while evading the considerably more powerful medium disruptors. Janitors might seem like a better deal for the large ammo capacity, but having that extra 100 meter range makes Prophet equipped cars a lot more survivable in my experience.

 

Favorite setup for Hawk Air Warrior in second week is two autocannons and the plasma multisystem. I usually sell the Valkyrie unless I've accumulated enough cash to buy all available Air Warriors. The autocannons have a short range but do damage roughly equal to rendors without using up elerium which is nice to stockpile for when the Lineage cannons become available. Autocannon ammo for some reason, is very scarce so you have to buy bikes, strip their autocannons and then sell them back for suitable ammunition. I figure Hawks are meant to get in close and soak damage while your smaller support vehicles fire from far away anyway, so why not give them a nice close range weapon that's almost as effective as Rendors until the Lineage autocannons show up without pissing away the elerium on Transports and Fast Attack Ships.

 

Week Three, I hope to have maybe 3-5 Air Warriors trading out as many autocannons for Lineage as is available and then switch my cars up to Justice Missile Systems in all but Superhuman difficulty. This way the cars can fire from across the city with impunity at larger UFOs who will just swat them out of the sky even at Prophet missile range. I don't bother with the long range missiles in Superhuman because buildings are so high that the missiles will just smack into them and alienate organizations half the time. In medium, however, the missiles are a nice source of added support against particularly hard targets. Six cars with Justice missiles can easily knock the shields and then some off of a larger UFO.

 

If only there was a cheaper platform to mount Retributions on. Valkyries are just too expensive to use as one shot wonders.

 

As for alien weapons, don't bother with Light Disruptors. Even the large Bolters are superior to them on every level. Alien missiles are no good for the same reasons. Medium and Heavy Disruptors pour on a lot more hurt over time, have better range, and have no ammo costs. I'm not entirely decided on stasis missiles but in some save/reload trial games I had, two annihilators armed to the teeth with the best disruptors available seemed to fare better against a battleship than if one had stasis missiles in its side racks. If you're going to use stasis, it might work better in scenarios where you have a lot more ships.

 

There are only three X-Com researched craft worth using, IMO. The Bio Trans is a great troop/cargo transport, is cheap to build, and frees up a lot of space on your interceptor craft for more shielding and other systems. The Retaliator is basically an Air Warrior with enough space on its side slots to equip two more medium disruptors where the Lineage cannons would normally go. Worth building until Annihilators become available. Annihilators, of course are pretty much the king and you might as well sell all the other craft once you have a few of them.

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There are only three X-Com researched craft worth using, IMO. The Bio Trans is a great troop/cargo transport, is cheap to build, and frees up a lot of space on your interceptor craft for more shielding and other systems. The Retaliator is basically an Air Warrior with enough space on its side slots to equip two more medium disruptors where the Lineage cannons would normally go. Worth building until Annihilators become available. Annihilators, of course are pretty much the king and you might as well sell all the other craft once you have a few of them.

Those are also the only X-Com craft you can research :P Except for the probe, of course, which is of little use after being sent into the Alien dimension.

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What? People actually build and send the probe into the alien dimension? Ah. I generally go straight onto producing the Bio trans, personally. ;) (I'll concede that they make fair hoverbike replacements, but they are very slow to build)

 

I beg to differ on the usable hybrid aicract. I add the Explorer into the mix. That is a closer successor to the Hawk Air Warrior than the Retaliator. It fits its weapon hardpoint setup perfectly, although you lose a 1x4 upgrade slot. The Retaliator is close as well, but it has three medium hardpoints, putting it in a much heavier firepower class. The Explorer is not as bad as you may think, even though it can only hold 2 small shields or 1 large shield. They're quite nippy, being second only to the Annihilator in speed, and are capable of taking on the entire alien fleet given you have a sizeable fleet (4 - 5) and are carrying medum disrupters to breach the capital ship hulls.

 

As for weapons, I find them to be a bit of a mixed bag. They're all good to varying degrees.

 

I like bolter lasers to start off with. Miniguns are good too. Were I able to mount the ground vehicle weapon on my ships, I'd go for the 40mm turret that Megapol use and the rumble cannon (the single most powerful weapon X-Com can have that can match the heavy disrupter, but is all but wasted due to its reliance on a road vehicle).

 

The Rendor plasma cannon is highly inefficient with its elerium usage, so I go straight to the slightly more expensive lineage plasma cannons. Lineage cannons are very fine weapons that I like to use in threes until I get the disrupters. I mount them on anything that'll take them. From hoverbikes to hovercars to the Hawk.

 

I like the plasma multi arrays for their almost 360 degree firing angle, but their release time is horrible, few ships can mount it, and the atrociously small magazine leaves you rather wanting.

 

Later on, medium disrupters and heavy disrupters are primary weapons, with bolters and lineage cannons filling gaps that cannot be filled by the disrupters.

 

Small disrupter are kept for the Bio Trans, but it's never needed as I always wipe out the alien dimension's fleet before thinking about any ground operations.

 

The disrupter inversion missiles are also quite powerful, so I use them on my 'bomber' Annihilator. It requires a pair of workshops to be pumping the ammo out to keep them maintained. They don't have the range of the one-shot missiles, but they certainly pack a huge punch and you can also carry a fair payload of missiles.

 

The multi-bomb, being built as an anti swarmer weapon (i.e. hoverbikes), doesn't see much action. At all. Capital ships aren't really phased by it.

 

The stasis missile sometimes replaces one inversion missile launcher on my bomber Annihilator (the main cannon mount is obviously filled with a heavy disrupter beam). It's always switched off and fired manually - as your AI pilot isn't that bright when it comes to conserving the ammo for this launcher. I only really use to stop capital ships from running away.

 

The three alien missile launchers are mainly used only for fun. In all other situations, I prefer to just use a pair of medium disrupters and a heavy disrupter. It's all you need to dominate the alien dimension skies.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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You forgot the Explorer Az.

 

Hmm... I'll have to look at the stats again but I had the impression the Explorer was signifigantly weaker than the Air Warrior from an armor perspective and having less space for equipment than the Air Warrior is a serious drawback, IMO. Why build your own if it's not an upgrade to what's already been available? Aside from being to able to visit the alien dimension, the Explorer doesn't appear to have much of anything over the Air Warrior other than a slight speed boost.

Edited by Pherdnut
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Ah, but you forget: Infinite fuel. That and the interdimensional travel and the speed are what you get for sacrificing a 1x4 upgrade slot. Toss in Lancer lasers and the medium disrupter, two shields and whatever else you can plug in, and you have a ship that never needs to land at a base with a repair bay unless it loses its shields.

 

Granted, fuel is cheap and you can park anywhere, but having a ship up in the air at all times of day is better because you can launch right into the interception rather than lose precious existing from the launch tubes.

 

Its lack of armour comes mainly from its lack of upgrade module space. But that's nothing. As long as it can mount a medium disrupter and some shields, it's a good enough ship in my book.

 

See, medium and heavy disrupters are about the only reasonable main non-missile weapons that can easily breach the hull of the capital ships, so anything that can mount one is a ship that can team up with a few others and wipe out the entire alien dimension fleet.

 

Myself, I want to wipe out the alien dimension fleet as quickly as possible so that there'll be no more fighting in the city, and Explorers are quick enough to construct early on before I get the blueprints for the Annihilator. Besides, once I'm done with them, I can sell them off for twice their construction cost - and the sell price never changes. So it's a win-win scenario.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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I've never bought fuel beyond the 1K that you start with.

 

I forget the research tree specifics where researching alien UFOs are concerned for the X-Com craft, but I always shoot down and capture one of every ship when it first shows up so I've never had to wait on researching the Retaliator after I got the explorer (although it's usually at least a few days before I get the battleship to research for the Annihilator). The Retaliator only takes a day or maybe two to reseach after you get the explorer IIRC. That's a lot more shields, armor, and elerium free armament for just a fraction of a week. With the Air Warriors doing better than the Explorer in our dimension, why bother making a weaker ship just because it can cross when you can get a signifigant improvement a day or two later?

 

Also, are the stats for the X-Com Craft accurate on the screen? I got the impression the speed boost wastn't actually that insane for the new X-Com ships. If the numbers are right, I think a well-equipped Valkyrie is one of the top three fastest ships, but I'll have to go back and doublecheck that.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hihi, I'm back.

 

What I tend to do is get hovercars, equip them with rendors/lineages, and shield them up before I upgrade to retallitators (buy more cars as more needed).

 

You need to raid a bit for elerium (not becoz its expensive, becoz you can't get enough :P) but usually this setup gives a lot less headaches (having an all out cars fleet is easy on thinking) and you don't have to mix up a lot of crafts or weapons (or ammo for that matter).

 

After having played thru the game a few times, I find that missiles (all kinds) are not worth the bother. They are slow, they get stuck, they kill friendly craft, they need ammo (a lot more compared to elerium), they are boring, I hate em.

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  • 2 months later...
It's been a very long time since I've played the game, but I recall using masses of Hoverbikes early on, along with the Valkyrie and the occasional hovercar. Lots of laser guns and lineage plasma guns and a few missiles, and pretty much every ufo goes down or gets a good kicking before returning to their homeworld. I also enjoy the carnage that ensues as buildings collapse around my 10-20 anti-ufo craft! Occasionally for a change I get a Stormdog out of the garage with some rudimentary anti-aircraft cannon and send it out to distract the UFOs. Despite the fact the car can barely scratch the paintwork of the ufo, much less down it, ufos love to target them whilst the hovercars and proper craft blow great chunks out of their hull. Sure the roads need a bit of repairing afterwards, but those road-maintence chaps always need an excuse to waste their budget at the end of the week. As soon as the Hawk comes along, I of course use that as my main anti-ufo craft, but I make sure I have a monopoly on every hoverbike that comes available. They're always useful, even if you do have to park them elsewhere so they don't block up all the launch pads at your bases.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Initially I get the feeling that hoverbike swarms are a bit better than hovercar swarms, or perhaps a mixed approach is best. While UFOs still use only light disruptors hovercars can take a hit or two (or three) while hoverbikes barely manage 1. And then there's friendly fire. Perhaps hovercars are better. Weapon power to cost ratio is about the same for either (both much better than Valkyrie and Hawk, you only need 1 of these for UFO missions). Then again hoverbikes cause the UFOs to miss so much that you can make so many corps hate the aliens. And once medium disrupters start appearing hovercars can become very costly. The really deciding factor is shields. When you get the small ones, your hovercars become almost too good, best way to use a shield. Much better than on a big ship that gets hit with almost every shot. If I recall correctly hoverbikes become even more a liability when the multi-bomb appears.

When you get the very armoured UFOs you just need Hawks though, for their medium disruptors. Unless ofcourse you already have Explorers or ,even better, Retaliators.

What I like to do is to have a few hovercars (without shiields if I don't have enough) with lasers to kill all UFO shields (and low armour UFOs), a few shielded hovercars with plasma guns, preferably lineage, to take on the medium armour UFOs, and a few Hawks or other medium disrupter capable craft to take on the heavily armoured UFOs.

This fleet works well and is very efficient (especially if you time it so you don't waste powerful shots on UFO shields and low powered shots on armoured UFOs) and you can get it pretty early in the game.

Later on Retaliators rule the sky with ease, having destroyed the alien dimension UFO fleet, usually before I can get my first Annihilator going.

And with toxigun, cloak and shield (and mind benders), alien buildings shouldn't be much trouble either. Just remember to pack enough vortex mines to kill reinforcement pads, if you are a completist. Or just do the mission objective and run away you coward!

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Pherdnut says that autocannons are almost as effecive as rendors, but he doesn't take into acount UFO armour. Against Fast attack UFOs for example, even lasers can be more effective than autocannons (after the shields are gone) since they have an armour that deducts roughly 9.5 damage points per shot.

I think it's better to mix weapons to take advantage of all their benefits and dilute their shortcomings. I still rather dislike missiles though...

 

I also noticed that the 1-shot missiles don't seem to do the damage they advertise, at least against airborne target. What's up with that?

 

PS: One final note I have is about friendly fire. Does it do full damage or some percentage of normal, like 50%, when your own weapons hit your own craft?

Edited by komninosm
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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I use a default Valkyre with some Hovercars and Hoverbikes added. Not yet decided which are better, their cost/effectiveness is close:

Hoverbikes are a little bit cheaper (also you lose less, if one is destroyed), faster, dodge UFO shots better, but are less durable and are not shield-able. I also like to use them to make Medium Disruptor-armed UFO's hit buildings to make orgs unhappy.

Hovercars can stand more damage, but are more likely to be hit, and can be shielded making them very durable, taking into consideration they don't get each hit like capital ships.

Weapons - mostly Lineages and Janitors, maybe some Prophets for hard targets, lasers against easy ones.

I don't like Prophets much - OK, they do more damage. But only 4 more and have reduced fire rate. I don't find range being a very big advantage - your craft tends to get close to UFO's, no matter the maximum range. The main reason I don't like Prophets is not even the small magazine, it's the price on rockets being 2 times higher than Janitor's. And the weapon is only slightly better - Janitors do more damage per $ spent on them.

Tried Justice missiles - IMHO waste of money. Good damage, but still not enough to shoot down an UFO. And while you still need to finish an UFO with your ordinary weapons it's not important if your first punch was fast and hard.

I don't fear Medium Disruptor UFO's much. A Hovercar can stand 1, maybe 2 shots, and if you make sure you evacuate a damaged car from the battle, that's not a problem. Alien missiles - this is a real aircraft killer. Much lower chances to dodge them (unlike 95% of the time missing Beams), and instant destruction of a bike or a car. Destroyers and/or bombers attacks usually mean I lose some small craft.

That's my plan for first 3 weeks. Later I use Retaliators with MDB's and shields, like, I beleive, everybody else.

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Diemex:

 

I would recommend the more expensive Lineage Plasma Cannons over the Rendor Plasma cannons. I'm not sure why, but the Rendor uses more elerium than the Lineage but puts out less firepower. The Rendor's expensive at $6,400 a cannon, but well worth it.

 

The multi-beam plasma turret uses even more ammo and gives you even less shots, which is a shame as it's a decent weapon. Luckily, few ships can mount this weapon, and it's often outclassed by the time you can use it, so it's not really an obvious problem.

 

As for Elerium - most organisations that do not stock psiclones will store elerium pods instead. Office blocks and apartments are good places to look. Obvious targets include Solmine and even the political groups like the Extropians and Technocrats. Warehouses and arms factories have good potential of generating elerium pods, although you probably won't get as good a haul of elerium as with the offices or apartments. Any non-gang slums are also worth a look.

 

Look for little orange pods as you go through the map. They may occasionally get picked up by the guards. Each pod automatically gets converted to a certain amount of elerium ammo when you get back to your base. I think it gives you less than $4000 or so worth of elerium (500 units?). I do not recall the exact amount, but it's a generous amount all the same.

 

Rather than stealing elerium, just stick with the bolter laser cannons for as long as you can, and reserve the plasma cannons for heavily protected UFOs.

 

- NKF

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  • 4 weeks later...

It seems that the Janitor-vs-Prophet argument is moot, at least for me, as I have to use both to have enough ammo to get in the ring with the aliens. Like most, I use a Valk for troops, and a combination of hovercars and bikes to warm the aliens until I can manage to save up for a Hawk Air Warrior and some Lineage plasma cannons. I haven't raided like a fiend as, it turns out, the best players do, so Hawks have always been a highly coveted purchase. Now I raid more so I can get the money to buy better gear. However, raiding always has the potential of getting your maturing agents killed!

 

When my first Lineage-equipped Hawk enters the scene, there's nothing quite as satisfying as taking it out against its first alien ship, while it lays down the punishment with its 3 lineage plasma cannons. It's so satisfying to watch the alien's hull integrity plummet. Depending on the alien ship, I'll set the Hawk Gunship to aggressive - drive it right up to the alien and watch it outgun the alien with maximum number of accurate shots. Of course, it's a tricky strategy, and not to be entered into lightly against bombers or groups of alien ships.

 

Incidentally, a Hawk Gunship can also dispatch hoverbikes and cars quite well this way. In a shooting match, the bikes and cars will dodge all over. But one the rare occasion I have to fend off a building attack, I'll send out a Hawk Gunship, set it to aggressive, and watch it fly right up to a car or bike and pow-pow-pow! Triple plasma shots and bye-bye hoverbike or hovercar! Later in the game, I heavily shield some of these Gunships and keep them as reserves while my fleet goes to the alien dimension. I once attacked a CoS building with one: cars and bikes swarmed up to meet it. It took out 4 or 5 of them this way before I pulled it back on account of low shields.

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