Just Got The Game And...

[BWS2K]

Howdy all,

I just picked up the game and it is pretty confusing to me. I'm getting used to it but mostly just because I keep restarting the first mission or two. Any pointers on things I need to know or advice for rookies? I know I can change agents' names, how about their pictures? I am also unclear how money works...should I just beef up a few agents instead of paying for dozens? I do have the manual but maybe I'm just think-headed... Thanks in advance!

 

~~BW, who is glad to have found a PC game that works on his PC...

[Aiki-Knight]

Howdy all,

I just picked up the game and it is pretty confusing to me. I'm getting used to it but mostly just because I keep restarting the first mission or two. Any pointers on things I need to know or advice for rookies? I know I can change agents' names, how about their pictures? I am also unclear how money works...should I just beef up a few agents instead of paying for dozens? I do have the manual but maybe I'm just think-headed... Thanks in advance!

 

~~BW, who is glad to have found a PC game that works on his PC...

 

Those better than I will pitch in here soon, I'm sure. Let me start with some basic advice:

 

1. Sell the roadcar and buy hoverbikes to fight the aliens. You'll lose some, but they're the most effective at the beginning.

2. Don't buy up every agent you can. have a ground team of 8-12, plus a couple extras to fill in for injured agents.

3. Spend thriftily: Buy what you NEED. Don't buy stuff you don't use. Sell what you're not using. Save up your money over time to buy the big stuff when it comes out, like Hawk Air Warriors and Lineage Plasma Cannons.

4. Don't use the Rendor plasma cannon - it consumes twice the elerium and does less damage.

5. In ground missions, don't leave agents alone, or they'll get brainsucked. Keep agents at least in close sight of one other. When all else fails, an HE grenade will kill a brainsucker but not the agent being attacked.

6. Work on arranging your base as soon as you can afford to: isolate the vehicle bay and lift from the rest of the base with a line of security stations. Keep all other facilities on the other side of the security stations.

7. In ground missions, throw stun gas grenades even against enemy humans - it's a great way to recover equipment.

 

Let us know what you're having trouble with - there are forum members here who can tell you exactly what to do.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Well, the trick isnt really to being Thrifty, its knowing how to use your equipment Effectively, so then you dont need to Replace it

 

Take a look at the Sniper, if you give it to an Agent with High accuracy, and set it to Aimed mode, it will hit the target and possibly do injuries Alot of the time, but if you use the sniper on auto fire, it wont hit anything but your agents.

 

Also, people might think Im crazy for this, but using Marsec Machine guns AIMED works MUCH better for me than Auto, unless Im in tight areas of course.

The little bar under the guns are accuracy bonus's you gain for the stance and aiming mode you are using.

 

Hope that helps, but btw. I find that Pheonix hovercars with thier normal equipment works best for me, although I have a habit of upgrading their engines.

 

The faster the ship goes, the more shots you can get on the fleeing Ufo's.

[[NKF]]

This game allows you to play well in so many weird and fun ways, it's not funny!

 

I'll list a few random tips off the top of my head:

• First of all, use the top-10 infiltration chart. A lot. Whenever the aliens drop troops into a building, use this top-10 chart in combination with the overhead map and the organisation's tab to track down potential sites to investigate well before you get an alarm. Except for the very first alert in the game, most alerts are an indicator that you're letting the infiltration levels run rampant.
   
  
• You don't have to shoot down every UFO that you see. You do however want to capture the Type-3 transporter (the first purple medium sized UFO that you see). It's a serious research bottleneck, and if you miss it, it'll become very scarce as the game progresses.
   
  
• In tactical combat, if you're running out of ammo too often, try to get up close to your targets. This makes efficient use of your ammunition and firing speed. Note that when double-weilding weapons, your fire rate goes up. With paired Marsec M4000s, you'll actually be wasting your rate of fire on full auto. Go with snap or aimed shots. Getting close to your target can be done by racing from cover to cover, waiting behind cover for the enemy to come to you, or having a whole squad spread out and race towards the target. The last one might sound crazy, but the enemy can only target one agent at a time, and works brilliantly for power sword rushes.
   
  
• Early in the game, consider pairing your weapons with a stun grapple. Most humanoid enemies will get knocked out incredibly quickly with these devices. If you knock out brainsuckers, be sure to kill them while they're knocked out. Tougher enemies like the multiworm will not fall to the stun grapples alone, but they will be partially stunned, so you can disable them faster.
   
  
• Power swords. This weapon is on par with the alien's best standard weapon, the Devestator Cannon in terms of how much damage it can dish out. Unfortunately it's restricted to short range combat. It's very hard to get these legally (they appear too late and in to small a quantity), but you can easily steal them from a Marsec Arms Factory. If you manage to get one early on, combine it with the stun grapples. This will greatly help you if you're suffering from ammo shortages.
   
  
• If you want to use psionics, be sure to remember that you can only upgrade your agent's psi stats to 3 times their base value. This means if you want a good psionic, hire a really good hybrid. Be sure to at least have one or two token hybrids. You'd be amazed at how useful and powerful they can be, despite how much psionics have been nerfed in Apocalypse.
   
  
• AP grenades in real-time combat. Use a right-click to get the 'blast on impact' setting that's available in turn-based combat.
   
  
• Agents in mid-suck by brainsuckers cannot access their inventories. A work around is to go to another agent, going to the inventory screen, then going to the agent in mid-suck.
   
   
  
• Brainsuckers have a moment of logical uncertainy when jumping on prone soldiers - and stun themselves. This is a bit of a bug, but an amazing anti-brainsucker-horde move.
   
  
• Androids - they cannot train. However they get a mix of low to mid-ranged stats, and are ignored by brainsuckers. This makes them really useful - especialyl for performing careless manouvres that you wouldn't want a human or hybrid to do. They're also ignored by psi-units.
   
  
• Brainsucker pods. If you see them being launched at you, go to your inventory the moment they land on the ground. You can pick the brainsucker up. Read the next tip for consolidating multiple brainsucker pods.
   
  
• Consolidating ammo. This only works in the battlescape. You can combine ammo clips into a single slot by dragging an identical ammo type onto another. The clip you dragged will turn into a dummy clip and contain 0 rounds. The target clip will have a combined ammo count (and, unfortunately, the weight) of both clips. Not entirely necessary, but useful with large-ammo weapons like the heavy launcher and mini-launcher. With brainsucker pods, if it's turned into a dud, it won't hatch. You can make these empty clips vanish by dragging them onto their respective weapon, the same way you load them.
   
  
• Alien and human organisation tech rollout is score based. So if you think the aliens are gaining new technology faster than you can keep up, slow down your point accumulation. You can do this by letting the aliens go, being super efficient with alien drop sites to reduce the number of missions (i.e. go after them within the first couple of hours after the drop), not going on resource raids on enemy organisations, sacrificing your own equipment, etc.
   
  
• Bolter lasers are a great lazy weapon to use early in the game. They require no ammo, and are quite powerful when used in large numbers (ala hoverbike swarms). Mix in a few of the missiles for good effect. as mentioned earlier, the rendor plasma cannon is inefficient. Go for the Lineage plasma cannon. It's expensive at $6400 a pop, but it's the best aircrat cannon you can get until the medium and heavy disrupters.
   
  
• When fighting UFOs, there are two commonly used fleets to combat them. Small groups of heavily armed gunships, or swarms of smaller ships. Heavily armed gunships might consist of a small wing of Hawk Air Warriors (or better) armed with the heaviest guns you've got, while a swarm might consist of a fleet of hoverbikes and hovercars armed with bolters, lineage cannons and janitor/prophet missile arrays. I like to use a combination of both.
   
  
• Bio and storage modules for vehicles have a limitless capacity even though it does say they have a 50 Capacity. So you only need one of each on the troop transport.
   
  
• The road vehicles are incredibly weak in this game because they are reliant on the road. They blow up when the road blows up. This is a serious design flaw that eliminates their general use. Do however consider keeping an APC as secondary transports for delivering secondary or tertiary squads to infiltration sites around the city.
  

Ugh, that's not even ordered. Oh well.

 

- NKF

[BWS2K]

Awesome guys, thanks a lot!

 

I had the chance to play for several hours last night... this morning?... and have got a decent grasp on the combat portion. I started using turn-based but tried real-time and like it better simply because I think it goes faster for me. I can always hit the life-saving spacebar anyhow. But I still don't quite get the whole organizations/allies/cityscape/base stuff.

 

Will I be attacked at my own base? Why are slums bad bases? Why have more than one base, and is the vehicle bay the only entry point?

 

I actually just played for a few hours/days then restarted the game when I got too far to understand, so I have a pretty nice idea of how things work initially (i.e. how to research, send teams out for investigations or raids, etc.). I tried to powerplay four or five agents rather than paying for a dozen or more, which works well for my multi-tasking and concentration level, but apparently not so good against, say, rockets.

 

So I've watched where the UFOs congregate once they appear and then investigated but end up ticking people off - should I wait once something is reported instead of heading right over? And also, when I look at the agents in my base they have a lighter colored part of the bar for a stat - is that what they will be at the end of the day or is that what they are currently as opposed to what the started as?

 

That's all I have time for right now, my many thanks to all. This is looking to be a very good (time-consuming) game but since I don't know anyone else who owns it I have to pester you!

 

~~BW, who really hates those rocket-weilding cultists...

 

[Edit] P.S. When will the top ten infiltration chart start showing me stuff?

Edited May 25, 2007 by BWS2K

[j'ordos]

Yep attacks at your own base can occur. Either by aliens or by hostile organisations. Most of the time you'll get a message from the organisation asking you to pay them money or 'you may be subject to hostile actions' or something before they start doing that though.

Slums aren't bad bases per se, but some of them can collapse rather easily compared to warehouses. Notice the 'yellow circle with red oval inside it' symbol on one of your base sections. These represent your soldiers. If that section of your base would ever be destroyed (UFO's attacking or simply a stray shot, ... ) All your soldiers simply die.

More than one base mostly to fit the larger advanced workshop&research facilities, and also so you don't lose the game if your only base is attacked just as your soldiers are badly injured/away or something

If you're ticking off organisations when investigating it means there are no aliens there. You'll know which building they're infecting because of the white 'tube' appearing beneath UFO's when they're hovering over a building for a while. To remeber which building it was use the trick NKF suggested. Waiting for the alert is probably a bad idea as the infection will most likely already have spread in the meantime, plus it costs points every time an alert is triggered.

No idea about the infiltration chart. Possibly at midnight every day?

Edited May 25, 2007 by j'ordos

[[NKF]]

Base attacks - yes. With the aliens, you'll get to see them drop aliens into your building, if you let them. With enemy organisations, it's random but can happen if they're on bad enough terms with you.

 

More bases - as mentioned, to spread out a bit. It's not a good idea to cram everything into the one. Lots of smaller bases with effective defensive modules are better to defend than a single large base that has everything but fewer defense modules, for example. One good example is to use the second or third base as your mass production facility, where you build two or more large workshops.

 

Slums - they often have the most room to work with, but they collapse easily when attacked. The opposite is true with warehouses. Less working space, but the building can survive more hits and as each section is sturdier, has a smaller chance of suffering the domino collapse effect that plagues slum complexes. Your choice. If you get lots of direct attacks on your base, you want to stick with the warehouses. If you play it safe and only have to fend off raids, then slums are fine. Just pick the one that works best for you.

 

UFOs - as mentioned, you'll have to watch the transports drop their payload of aliens first before investigating. Use the pause function and let time move slowly and watch the transports closely as they make their way through the city. When they stop and drop the white beam, then you'll have found your main infiltration site.

 

If the beam is sparkly blue, then no aliens are dropped into the building. This is known as micronoid rain, and cannot be stopped once dropped. The organisation may suddenly get 100% infiltrated if the attack succeeds. Of course, it doesn't always succeed! Don't investigate this site, as you won't find anything in it.

 

Your agent stats - the lighter bars show experience earned. The darker bars are that soldier's base stats.

 

Your top-10 infiltration chart - It should update in real-time. Well, not quite, but it updates often enough that you can check it in quick bursts. It probably updates in half hour cycles. If you let a couple of game hours pass (ideally after you've cleared all known infiltration sites), you'll be able to see if any organisations are currently being infested. The faster the spike in the graph over time, the worse the infiltration. Just remember to update the top-10 chart every time you look at it for the best results.

 

If the rise in the graph is weak enough, you can easily get away with leaving it be. The aliens will die off and the infiltration will drop by itself. If it's a sharp rise, get out there and do some pest extermination.

 

- NKF

Edited May 25, 2007 by NKF

[BWS2K]

What are psiclones?

 

~~BW, who is not psychic...

[Sorrow]

Check in the Ufopedia. Most (all) of items and organisations in game are described. It's good to read most of articles in the Ufopedia when starting playing X-Com3 - there are a lot of informations about the game setting, organisations, society, building types, weapons, etc.

It makes playing the game easier and more enjoyable.

 

Reading the game manual is a good idea too.

 

Base attacks - yes. With the aliens, you'll get to see them drop aliens into your building, if you let them. With enemy organisations, it's random but can happen if they're on bad enough terms with you.

Raids from enemy organisations can be stopped by inflicting financial losses on organisation so that it has less money than 0.

Edited May 25, 2007 by Sorrow

[[NKF]]

What are psiclones?

 

~~BW, who is not psychic...

 

A psiclone hasn't any function in this game apart from being a guaranteed $4500 or so in portable form. The price doesn't fluctuate. You can generally find them when attacking buildings owned by any of the three gangs or the Cult of Sirius.

 

In the game's narrarative, it's just a narcotic that lets its users see God and pink elephants on bicycles. Can't for the life of me see how it's meant to work - which I guess is best left to the imagination.

 

- NKF

[Sorrow]

It's not a narcotic - it's an implant.

 

Psiclone

 

The Psiclone implant is manufactured and distributed by criminal gangs. It allows the user to experience any mental state or images just by imagining them. Its widespread popularity and detrimental effect on the health of young citizens led the Senate to ban the use or distribution of the device. The price of Psiclone implants has subsequently soared and this has resulted in open warfare between the criminal gangs and Megapol.

[BWS2K]

It's not a narcotic - it's an implant.

 

Psiclone

 

The Psiclone implant is manufactured and distributed by criminal gangs. It allows the user to experience any mental state or images just by imagining them. Its widespread popularity and detrimental effect on the health of young citizens led the Senate to ban the use or distribution of the device. The price of Psiclone implants has subsequently soared and this has resulted in open warfare between the criminal gangs and Megapol.

 

Right... so what does it do?

 

~~BW, who finally figured out the Top Ten Infiltration chart...

[j'ordos]

Nothing, it's just worth a nice amount of cash

[Guest Azrael]

Base attacks - yes. With the aliens, you'll get to see them drop aliens into your building, if you let them. With enemy organisations, it's random but can happen if they're on bad enough terms with you.

Raids from enemy organisations can be stopped by inflicting financial losses on organisation so that it has less money than 0.

Untrue, there seems to be unfortunately no way of stopping Corporation raids, no matter how many times you squash them.

 

One time, Osiron had been infiltrated by the Aliens and was raiding me once every few days, I'd launch my mighty Annihilator / Retaliator fleet against them, destroyed their whole fleet, completely razed all of their buildings to the ground (razed the Cult while I was at it, hehe), their funds would drop to BIG negative numbers. Despite being completely broke, they would still launch occassional raids against me.

 

I cannot remember whether the frequency of raids was reduced or not, but I'm sure they did not stop.

[Sorrow]

Weird. I was never raided by Corporations after bringing them below 0. Maybe it depends on difficulty level or something?

 

Right... so what does it do?

You mean what does it do in game?

It's here for a flavour. Also, it can be captured during raids on criminal organisations and sold.

Edited May 26, 2007 by Sorrow

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Well, it doesnt Actually do anything, but the story line of the device is that

 

They are created by Gangs, and criminal Organizations and sold to/used by people who want to see things

 

The implant I am currently unsure of where you would put a fist sized Tetrahydran with sharp things sticking out of it--sorry..

But wherever it is, it influences the brain waves into thinking it can see differant things, the programming could possibly be changed and would explain the Psi Implants in the temples, so that the people may see Images of their Alien Saviours =D

[Robo Dojo 58]

It's very handy to build a second Quantum Physics and Bio Lab at the beginning of the game. By the time they are completed, you will have a lot of topics queued up and ready for them. The labs are cheap, and will easily fit inside your first base. Similarly, get an extra workshop when funds permit. You won't need them right away, but it's preferable to get one started by the second week.

 

Don't get tempted to replace skilled labor when higher skill levels come along! $800 adds up fast, and you get no refund for firing someone. You will get FAR better results from filling up extra labs/workshops with average workers, than going through 3-4 waves to stock one lab with the best. Put the best scientists/workers in one shop, and the worst in the other(s), so that you can prioritize your projects.

 

I personally don't like the Valkyrie Interceptor or Air Hawk ships. You will NEED one to assault crashed UFOs with the cargo and bio modules. But spending around $80K for 2 guns, while the Air Hawk is over 100K for 3... it just isn't worth it. They will also soak up UFO fire and die surprisingly fast for a big ship. A hoverbike is a cool $5K for one gun, and the hovercars are about $10K for 2 guns. Max out the engines, and despite their low health they will evade most UFO fire.

 

I agree that road vehicles are terrible. However, the Griffon AV tank has one of the few starting weapons that can reasonably damage a Giant UFO. While it's not listed in the UFOpaedia, the rumble cannon is terrible because of its 1/4 firing arc. The plasma cannon covers a 3/4 arc, and its damage is enough to damage the giant UFOs. They can not intercept UFOs more than a few blocks from their position, even the slow ones. To make ANY use of them you'll need 5-6 tanks armed and dispersed throughout the city. It's not as bad as it sounds, as their cost is on par with a hovercar, and you can get swarms of those.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Eh, I just converted all weapons in the game to useable by aircraft ^^'

Im such a cheater..

 

You'd be surprised how effective the rumble cannon is in mid air though, Why isnt it normally an aircraft gun?!?..

heck, Id buy it.

[Aiki-Knight]

Eh, I just converted all weapons in the game to useable by aircraft ^^'

Im such a cheater..

 

You'd be surprised how effective the rumble cannon is in mid air though, Why isnt it normally an aircraft gun?!?..

heck, Id buy it.

 

What editors are you using to accomplish this?

[[NKF]]

I recall one version of XED allows you to add them onto your vehicles. Trust me, three rumble cannons on an Annihilator is too much. Far too much. Of course, this only applies when it's in manual control. The AI's a bit too weak to operate it to its fullest.

 

Against a battleship, manually fired triple rumble cannons can wipe it out in a matter of seconds. Seconds! Just imagine what the rapid high explosive shells can do to the city!

 

Even if you don't approve of such editing, you've got to try it at least once in your lifetime.

 

- NKF

[Aiki-Knight]

I recall one version of XED allows you to add them onto your vehicles. Trust me, three rumble cannons on an Annihilator is too much. Far too much. Of course, this only applies when it's in manual control. The AI's a bit too weak to operate it to its fullest.

 

Against a battleship, manually fired triple rumble cannons can wipe it out in a matter of seconds. Seconds! Just imagine what the rapid high explosive shells can do to the city!

 

Even if you don't approve of such editing, you've got to try it at least once in your lifetime.

 

- NKF

Is it more powerful/deadly than one heavy and two medium disruptors? How does the fire rate compare? (Where do I get that version of XED?!) :-)

 

Will the computer not use the rumble cannons in an aircraft to fire? Do you have to do it manually?

Edited May 31, 2007 by Aiki-Knight

[j'ordos]

Time to take out the competition.

Apoc'd 2.xx -> Edit Cityscape -> Vehicle Equipment 1 -> Rumble Cannon -> Item Group -> Ground Vehicles Only/Both -> Save.

This will allow you to mount the rumble cannon on air vehicles and they will use it without the need for manual control.

Edited June 1, 2007 by j'ordos

[Aiki-Knight]

Time to take out the competition.

Apoc'd 2.xx -> Edit Cityscape -> Vehicle Equipment 1 -> Rumble Cannon -> Item Group -> Ground Vehicles Only/Both -> Save.

This will allow you to mount the rumble cannon on air vehicles and they will use it without the need for manual control.

Where does one download such greatness? ;-)

[[NKF]]

Jolly good competition indeed! XED was always very fickle running on more modern systems.

 

Aiki-Knight: Let's just say that the Rumble Cannon has much more potential to it than the AI can utilise. In manual control, in medium to close quarters, it makes the Large Disrupter Beam look like a child's toy. Actually, comparing the two per shot, the large disrupter is more powerful. The Rumble Cannon on the other hand spits exposive shells out at a very rapid rate.

 

Give j'ordos's editor a go. No, give three a go.

 

- NKF

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Ive Never run Xed, always used Overkill or Midnight, but Yeah in this case I was using J'ordos's Program.

[Sharp]

This game allows you to play well in so many weird and fun ways, it's not funny!

 

I'll list a few random tips off the top of my head:

1. 
   <snip>
   
2. Androids - they cannot train. However they get a mix of low to mid-ranged stats, and are ignored by brainsuckers. This makes them really useful - especialyl for performing careless manouvres that you wouldn't want a human or hybrid to do. They're also ignored by psi-units.
    
   
3. The road vehicles are incredibly weak in this game because they are reliant on the road. They blow up when the road blows up. This is a serious design flaw that eliminates their general use. Do however consider keeping an APC as secondary transports for delivering secondary or tertiary squads to infiltration sites around the city.
   

Ugh, that's not even ordered. Oh well.

 

- NKF

 

Ordered it to explain easier

1, Androids get above average stats for everything except for psi-power and attack, androids generally though have higher strength and higher hitpoints which takes a human counterpart a long time to recieve as well as having full psi-defence (also in a way they get higher speed as less speed is reduced due to weight of equipment).

 

2, Im suprised j'ordos replied and ignored this. Ground vehicles are made useful by the incredibly amazing Roadwar!!! mod. Making roads invincible and allowing for increased options to make road vehicles more useful, mainly though you just want to turn roads invicible and make the rumble cannon 360 degrees to give ground vehicles some chance.

[j'ordos]

2, Im suprised j'ordos replied and ignored this. Ground vehicles are made useful by the incredibly amazing Roadwar!!! mod. Making roads invincible and allowing for increased options to make road vehicles more useful, mainly though you just want to turn roads invicible and make the rumble cannon 360 degrees to give ground vehicles some chance.

 

Man you're still talking about that old program?

j/k. I actually found a bug in the invincible roads patch recently (well I think it's because of that): the Overspawn can walk over most over of the small flyer factory tiles. they can be destroyed just fine with weapon fire though, and coupled with the rarity of an overspawn attack it's not a very severe bug. But now that I finally figured out the armor part of the tiles I can fix the last bugs and finally finish roadwar... When I get 'round updating it that is.

[Sorrow]

Heh...

When the tile editing feature will be in Apoc'd?

[j'ordos]

Well I was busy improving savegame vehicle editing support, but that's pretty much finished for now (still lots of unknown values though). I'm thinking of adding UFO crew editing support before I release a new version, found the values thanks to apocutil (great program ), but I don't have too much time ATM.

Apoc'd doesn't support pck images though, so the tile editing is currently pretty useless on it's own you'll need a program that can read the tile images too. (XME is a good one)

anyway shouldn't take too long anymore, a week or two?

Edited June 10, 2007 by j'ordos

[Sorrow]

Cool .

Tile editing is useful, even without changing graphics - for making them more resistant/destroyable for example...

BTW.

 

Unknown 130 in vehicle savegame editing is vehicle's current HP .

[j'ordos]

Cool .

Tile editing is useful, even without changing graphics - for making them more resistant/destroyable for example...

BTW.

 

Unknown 130 in vehicle savegame editing is vehicle's current HP .

 

I'm not even talking about tile changing, just tile viewing. You can't see what tile you're editing in it's current state

Yeah I found that one, unknown 132 is shield points btw. Thanks though

[Pherdnut]

I only ever played on turn-based, but my favorite tactical weapons are stun grenades and m4000s at the start. Don't bother with the first alien gun. They're really weak. The trick to the Marsec is to get in close and just riddle your opponents with rapid fire. Use stun grenades to take out multiple opponents. I only get the plasma pistols for shooting poppers (the 2-legged doggies that go boom) since energy weapons will kill them without the unpleasant explosive side effect. If you must use the heavy launcher avoid killing with direct shots. It has an irritating one-two punch that kills on the hit and then explodes, destroying all equipment on the target. Sadly, it loses a lot of punch in the blast radius.

 

For vehicles, I'm a bigger fan of the cars than the bikes. Once the UFOs starting getting stronger bikes will die in one shot if they get hit, which is rare but will happen in a fracas. Cars can actually take a hit and equip a shield.

 

The key to understanding vehicle weapons is that the only purpose of missiles is to allow vehicles to evade while continuing to attack. Guns are much more powerful when you take rate of fire into account. It's not worth putting larger vehicle on evasive.

 

The first week UFOs are such a slight threat that I prefer to go with lasers on everything. I keep the Valkyrie since it's speedy and it can equip the larger lasers which have nice range. Makes it easier to gun down UFOs that are on the run. I usually have at least five cars. Sell all ground vehicles and don't forget the ammo for the ground vehicles. It's worth a lot of cash. Likewise with all those janitors and ammo.

 

Once the fast attack ships show up (green and pointy-topped), things can get dangerous for your cars so set them on evasive and equip them with prophets. The reduced ammo capacity might make these seem less ideal than janitors but the extra range and added punch makes your cars a heck of a lot more survivable. Another 100 range makes it a lot easier to dodge on evasive.

 

Once missile equipped UFOs start to show up I trade out the prophets in favor of Justice missiles, which yes, CAN fit in hovercars. Simply pop your cars up, launch a horde of missiles at a larger UFO from absurdly far away, and park them again. Let your Air Warriors do the rest.

 

On the second week I usually ditch the Valkyrie in favor of my first Air Warrior (lots of Cult of Sirius raids make this possible). It gets multibeam plasma and two autocannons. Autocannons look weak on paper but the ROF of these guns actually makes them quite strong. This helps save Elerium for those lovely Lineage cannons that will show up on week 3. Don't equip the light disruptor. Like its hand-weapon counterpart it's only advantage is zero ammo consumption. Medium disruptors on the other hand are awesome. For autocannon ammo, buy hoverbikes, swap out their autocannons, and then sell them. I think the devs goofed on available autocannon ammo.

 

Notes on other vehicle upgrades: I always put the best engines I can in. Just a slight increase in speed can make a big difference.

 

Improved targeting only affects guns. Don't waste space on missile vehicles.

 

Antimissile weapons are a waste of space. You'll only see them work if you devote three slots and lots of targetting to them. Awfully silly.

 

Missile Evasion Matrixes actually work. The additional shields vs matrix dilemma, I'll leave to you.

 

Multiple shields stack. That goes for agents and vehicles.

[Sorrow]

I'm not even talking about tile changing, just tile viewing. You can't see what tile you're editing in it's current state

Oh I see XDDDDDDDDDDDD

Hmm...

Could they be named or something like that?

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Good post Pherdnut, Those tips are actually fairly useful.. xD

I myself didnt ever consider the vehicle combat all that essential.. But I suppose its fun anyways ^^'

 

I have to dissagree on the issue of the light disruptor gun though, its Quite powerful when used Properly.

 

When you can get a Biotrans, it becomes your best friend.

The best form of attack the vehicle can use, Ive tried all the others that fit, and they dissapoint me.

 

If you can get shields at where you are, Ditch all the equipment in the trans for Maxed Shields, You can get a Jammer if you wish, it doesnt matter though since its such a small craft.

 

Think Hoverbike with higher fire power and much more health !

 

Oh, and Probes are essentially useless, dont bother making an army out of those ^^'..

[[NKF]]

I like the Light Disrupter too - but you're not going to punch through any capital ship armour with it. The shields, yes, but not the hull itself. The Probes are actually the fastest ships in the game. If they were cheaper and could be built faster, they'd make a marvelous replacement for the hoverbikes. I mean, to have a 2x2 hardpoint that allows the multi-plasma or the light disrupter is good enough for me.

 

The disrupter gun (the fish gun) isn't too shabby. It's basically a sub-machine gun in operation. Wear two and go full auto. It empties quickly, so you'll want to refresh them while in the field. The Devestator is obviously better, but to get a weapon which is a bit more powerful than the Plasma Gun with a recharging ammo clip, it makes for an awesome interim weapon that obliterates any ammo shortage problems you might have.

 

Speaking of the plasma gun - a lot of people seem to underestimate it. I implore everyone who ignores them to reconsider. It offers superb accuracy, damage which almost matches the Autocannon AP shells (one of the heaviest hitting non-explosive ranged terran weapon that you can buy), carries an impressively large ammo clip and has a decent rate of fire. It's a very nicely balanced weapon that I use to completely replace the laser sniper rifle for medium to long range combat. Sure it's no Heavy Plasma, but it's very efficient and packs a good whallop.

 

The plasma missle defence arrays are actually quite good, but they don't dish out enough damage to the alien missiles in enough time to destroy them. They must be combined with missile jammers (or the cloak shields) to even give them an iota of a chance to work (cross your fingers and hope that the missile swings too far so that it has to circle you a few times). Because they're too costly on hardpoint space, I generally like to only equip one ship in a wing with two of these for good measure. They do make for a fun 'manual control' rapid UFO shield sapper or for using against enemy Hawks and Hoverbikes (three of these and the 360 firing arc makes them brilliant for this purpose). But like the accuracy modifiers, they aren't really needed. They're just a fun thing to play around with.

 

One tip about ship to ship combat - you can sometimes fight them a lot better when your ships are not moving. That is to say, while they're hovering in mid air and facing their target. There are two ways to achieve this. The first is to just manually position the ships yourself. The other is to select the group of ships you want to halt in mid-air (while executing an attack), and select "attack target" - but do not complete the command (just don't select a target). Your ships will pause in mid air, but their guns will continue firing on any enemy ships in front of them. Sort of like Simon Says - with the guns working independantly of the ships.

 

Now, you're probably thinking at this moment in time that I've lost a few marbles. I assure you, I haven't. See, what happens in a normal fight is that your ship will fly towards the UFO, guns blazing. Once its gets too close, it circles around and fires on the UFO again, repeat ad infinitum. While it's not looking at the UFO during this spin, the guns are not firing. Having your ship pause in mid air while facing a UFO allows it to continue firing its guns over and over again as long as the ship is in sight. Once the UFO starts to move out of your firing arc, order everyone to move towards it, then halt again once you've repositioned your ships.

 

Note that the UFO can only taget one ship at a time, so this might endanger one ship slightly, so watch your ships and make sure any damaged ship retreats if they need to. If you've got shields, you can easily afford to do this and then wait for the shields to charge up again.

 

It might be difficult to do this in the city so you'll have to rely on luck and hope that your ships can hover along side a moving UFO or get in its line of flight. In the alien dimension on the other hand you have all the time in the world to set up a fxed ambush and get a UFO to fly right into your net.

 

Make use of your flight levels too. A tower of four ships on top of each other does have its uses.

 

Oh, and if you've got a ship stuck in a stasis field - switch to it and use manual control. Your guns can still be fired on manual.

 

- NKF

Edited June 13, 2007 by NKF

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Well in a matter of speaking, the shields are just health that you dont need to pay repairs to.. ^^'