Researching Tips

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

OK, I know a lot of people get stuck because of research choke points. I think there was a certain way the research was meant to be done, because mostly, I get the same sequence of aliens/items in the same order.

 

First, you research until Gauss Rifle clip. In the mean time, equip your Triton with Gauss Pistols. You'll have to attack your first sub with harpoons and your first terror site with gauss pistols.

 

Your first terror site will be gillmen and deepones. You are not MEANT to be stunning the deepones in this mission, so if you do stun one of them, ignore them in research.

 

After the terror site, equip triton with gauss rifles and either research deep one corpse and plastic aqua armor or research sonic blasta rifle. You need both since lobstermen start showing up. Either way, your first lobsterman mission may be without sonic rifles, so you have to pound em down with gauss.

 

After sonic rifles, research sonic pulsers and thermal shock launcher if you can. Both help greatly against lobstermen and other missions.

 

Research sonic pistols and cannons to get oscillators. Oscillators give you barracudas the ability to put down up to medium/large sized ships.

 

THIS IS WHERE PEOPLE GET STUCK: With oscillators, your barracudas CAN put down verg large subs, if you do a lot of save/load trick. DON'T. The thing is, you'll get yourself into lots of trouble if you start shooting down very large subs. First of all, you may get a live commander that is not lobstermen, and you DON'T want to research that. Second, you may be stopping important terror missions, either a Gillmen one (this is the mission where you have the chance to grab a deep one live if you couldn't before) or an Aquatoid one (which has Calcinite on board, for vibroblade).

 

Start researching alien corpses, and once you are finished with the corpses of a certain race, sell all of it EXCEPT ONE. You may need to double research some corpses (this does not create a dead end).

 

You should be putting down medium sized ships and getting lobstermen from them, so you probably got back with a live navigator. Start researching misc tech (things like alien learning arrays and mag. nav.) and continue the research with lobstermen navigator. Then you research deep one terrorist and climb up the X-Com craft tree as well as get the Ion Armor.

 

Somewhere along the lines you'll get a chance to grab a live tasoth. Tasoth are really random, it's up to the game you are in to decide when they show up. Live Tasoth means MC technology, but DON'T PUSH IT. Don't raid an alien colony, grab the tasoth outside your Triton and run back with your tail between your legs. Do it the old X-Com way: fight some MC before getting the technology.

 

When you get new craft, you'll start punishing very large subs. Depending on the speed with which you play the game, you may/may not have gotten Calcinites. If you need the vibroblades, leave aquatoid very large subs alone. Better, rely on your Transmission Resolvers to leave terrorist ships alone. Also, here's a list of terrorists specific to races so that you know which ones to leave alone.

 

Aquatoid = Calcinite

Gillmen = Deep One

Lobstermen = Bio Drone

Tasoth = Triscene (Tentaculat??? I've seen one in a two sider ship mission???)

 

From now on, the game depends on getting the lobsterman commander so you learn the Ultimate Threat, and you can do that with either a very large sub or an alien colony (go to the device room, stun the three lobstermen, and throw the commander's sorry donkey around if you have to).

 

Hope this helps. I didn't include certain things because they don't cause dead ends (Displacers and Disruptor Pulse Launchers). I always get disruptor pulse launchers whatever I do (I think you just need to have one in your research base and know about Zrbite). Displacers and Gauss Coecalanth are tricky, but only if you desperately need them. I usually end up getting all of them together when I do the deep one terrorist research. Strangely, deep one terrorist opens up SO MANY things that you should not miss it (or research it prematurely).

[[NKF]]

Heh, I'd actually recommend capturing a deep one as soon as possible. Gill Men Terror sites tend to become scarce very quickly. You'd be incredibly lucky to catch one (or even abduct one) with a thermal tazer at this stage.

 

Personally, I find that it doesn't matter how you proceed with your research as long as you know when and where to avoid the more serious bugs.

 

Off the top of my head, here are a few research nuances that you need to keep watch of.

 

1. Live Deep One

 

You must ONLY research it after the Ion Beam Accelerators and Plastic Aqua Armour. There's a very good chance that you'll not be able to research another live Deep One again. If you can, good for you, but if you cannot, then you must reload to an earlier save or restart, as you'll never get the Ion Armour without it - and as Ion Armour is part of Sub research, and subs are required to get to the endgame mission, well, it's not a pretty sight is it.

 

2. M.C. Reader

 

You must have a minimum of 1 in storage at the research base if you want to get its research topic after you complete research on the M.C.-Lab. If you do not have it, you'll never get this, the M.C Disrupter or the all-round useful M.C Generator aqua pod. This however will not stop you from winning the game.

 

3. Sub Construction

 

Like the M.C. Reader, you must have one in storage before completing research on the Mag Ion Armour and the Transmission Resolver (or whichever one comes last). If you do not have this, you'll never be able to research sub construction and will thus not be able to win the game. .

 

4. The PWT launcher and ammo

Zrbite is generally required for this research. If you don't have any when you research zrbite, they won't appear. Of course, you can reintroduce them by researching other research topics. I'm not too clear about what you need, but suffice to say that this topic will resurface, so no worries here.

 

5. Magnetic Navigation

v2.0CE and v2.0 Dos will have this research topic appear immediately after you get a sample (This also means that, + zrbite, you'll get the transmission resolver very early in the game). Earlier versions required the Lobsterman Navigator - which means you get armour very late into the game. With v2.0, you can get Ion Armour a heck of a lot earlier. (as early as you can get a live deep one, its corpse and an ion beam accelerator)

 

6. The Ultimate Threat

This first requires Alien Origins, which can be obtained from any alien. You can then get The Ultimate Threat from a Lobsterman Navigator or a Lobsterman Commander. Yep, if you don't have alien origins researched, you'll need to research it and then research yet another lob. navigator or commander. Unless you've got a spare commander, I suggest you hold on to it until you can find another or a navigator.

 

7. Leviathan

The first prerequisite is that the hammerhead is researched. If the hammerhead is researched and you then research a lobsterman commander, you'll get the leviathan.

 

IF you didn't have the hammerhead when interrogating the commander, you'll need to capture and interrogate another one (a pattern emerges! Live aliens need certain prerequisites filled before they introduce new topics).

 

 

8. T'Leth, the Alien's City

This one requires The Ultimate Threat to be researched first. Next research a lobsterman commander and you'll be able to get the T'Leth. Note, it's probably a good idea to kill a few birds with one stone by researching the Hammerhead and The Ultimate Threat first before researching the lobsterman commander. This will net you both research topics required to get to the endgame, and save you an additional trip into the heart of a colony, or a lobsterman battleship.

 

9. Tasoth Commander

Since TFTDv2, the tasoth commander no longer appears on the research roster. It can still appear in battles, but it will no longer cause any serious trouble(research-wise). However, if it's still on your research list, ignore it until you've got 'T'Leth the Alien's City' and the Leviathan.

 

10. Medics

 

Medics may provide random alien data, however, they do not provide the same benefits as researching the real thing.

 

All the other research topics are relatively straightforward and should pose no problems to you whatsoever. The topics listed above are pretty much the meat of the problems with TFTD's research tree.

 

Also note, apart from sub construction and the M.C Reader, all the other research topics will be safe as long as you've started their research projects and allocated 0 scientists to them. You can then proceed to sell off all the stuff you do not need, as the scientists will have extracted all they need to know about it. Like aquatoid corpses for example. If you start the project and assign no staff to it, then sell all the corpses, you'll still be able to research it. It's not much of a saving on space, but it does unclutter the inventory list and give you an extra $20k.

 

I spend far too much time on these games...

 

- NKF

Edited March 4, 2004 by NKF

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

1- The main reason people don't get the "late gillmen terror site" is that they shoot down very large subs that are going on terror missions. Just don't. You are not supposed to be able to shoot them down anyway. I do not blame the programmers on this one. Sure, they should close this stupid hole in the research tree, but then you have to think ahead and try to undrstand every wierd way someone can play the game and program accordingly. Since they were rushed when creating TFTD, I don't think this really annoying hole should be completely blamed on them.

 

2- Exactly why I say start researching MC AFTER you battle MC using aliens (doing it the old X-Com way). That way you are SURE you have an MC device in your base.

 

3- People are selling these technologies? Come on... you have TONS of sonic weapons to profit from...

 

4- As I mentioned, never had any problem with PWT, even when I hit the wall with Deep One or Tasoth Commander. PWT is the reason why I could do colony missions with plastic armor soldiers.

 

5- Well, surely there are ways to get the tech sooner, but my post is mainly to help those people that play the game, hit a research hole like this, and want some way to overcome this problem.

 

6- I think live aliens should be researched as late as you can and possibly in the order of ranking (from lowest to highest). ALWAYS ignore ranks inclding and above navigator that are not lobstermen. I mean, there are enough lobstermen to capture in the game (but not enough to satisfy my love for them, those little padding works of art).

 

7- Leviathan does not cause problems once you unlock the ion armour and X-Com crafts. At least, I've never had a Leviathan problem.

 

8- You get this without getting the new X-Com craft. I remember I got it when I hit a deep one hole the first time I played and get so fed up since I tried looking for the right colony that would be T'leth.

 

9- No comment here

 

10- I like medics for obsolete races that are out of the research tree (and medics usualyl give information about them). Things like Triscence or the JellyFish, those that appear in real special moments.