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UFO - ENEMY UNKNOWN AMIGA 1200 Frequently Asked Questions and Strategy Guide (updated 12/28/94) maintained by Kuo-Sheng (Kasey) Chang [PC] (kschang@mercury.sfsu.edu / ksc1@aol.com) Amiga update by Tommy Iversen (Mr.T) [AMIGA] (tommyi@colargol.edb.tih.no) (MrT - IRC) (Last updated : 4 Feb 1995) This is the AMIGA version of the faq. The cost of equipment,ammo and lots of other stuff has changed from the pc version, so I decided to update it for all you Amiga freaks out there. Amiga 4 ever guys !! If you have anything to add or something is wrong, please mail me at me email, so I can update this faq again. I have not done any calculations (Math is not my strong side), so if anyone out there feels for it, PLEASE do it, and mail me the result. WARNING * WARNING * WARNING * WARNING * WARNING * WARNING This FAQ and strategy article conatins info that you may prefer to find out by exploring and researching yourself. If you want to play the game in the dark then read on with care or not at all!! This FAQ was prepared using a wide range of material, including two existing UFO/XCOM FAQ's, Computer Gaming World's Strategy article, Computer Game Review's Strategy article (both are September 94), and the collective wisdom of fellow XCOM players of which there are too many to mention. In future updates all attempts will be made to credit each author with their specific hint. This version has been reorganized somewhat. All tables have been moved into the appendix section along with associated notes and hints. There are more discussion on how to cope with the 80-item limit, differences between the different type of shots and air attacks, and when to use each, and more. If you have any comments or other strategies, please submit them to the author via e-mail at the addresses above. Thanks to the following: * Julian Gallop, XCOM High Commander (XCOM Creator) * Jeff James, XCOM Strategist (CGW Strategy Writer) * Kevin Perry, XCOM Strategist (CGR Strategy Writer) * William Kang, commander, X-COM Strike Team 1 (FAQ Writer) * Tim Chawn, commander, X-COM Strike Team 2 (FAQ Writer) (Sorry about your name spelled wrong!) * Stuart Lamble, sergeant (Contributor) * Doug Osborne, master sergeant (frequent contributor) * SCOHN (?), sergeant (Contributor) * And all the fellow X-COM players, without whom this Strategy Guide will not exist! (Any one I missed?) Now, let's go save Earth! Table of Contents 1.0 General Information about XCOM .....................................2 1.1 What is X-COM : UFO Defense?.....................................2 1.2 What's the difference between X-COM and UFO:Enemy Unknown?.......3 1.3 What type of AMIGA do I need to run it?..........................3 * 1.4 Sounds cool, but I'd like to try it first......................4 1.5 How about any known bugs?........................................4 * 1.6 Are there any patches available for those bugs?................5 * 1.7 I need some help! Any saved game editors?.....................5 1.8 Any plans on sequels or expansion disks? Other versions?........5 2.0 How to use this strategy guide .....................................5 2.1 Dealing with flying UFOs.........................................5 2.2 Dealing with landed or crashed UFOs..............................6 2.3 Dealing with Terror Sites........................................6 2.4 Your initial lack of technology..................................6 2.5 Your limited budget..............................................6 2.6 Alien infiltration of governments................................6 2.7 Alien bases on Earth.............................................6 3.0 Strategy on Bases ..................................................6 3.1 Where should I build bases?......................................6 3.2 Base Types and evolution.........................................7 3.3 Base Construction................................................8 3.4 Defending a base.................................................8 4.0 Air Combat and Intercept Strategies ...............................10 4.1 Intercept tactics...............................................10 4.2 Weapons vs. target..............................................10 4.3 Differences among Aggressive, Normal, and Cautious attacks......11 4.4 Craft Weapons Tactics...........................................12 4.5 Finding the alien base..........................................12 4.6 Keep soldiers in bases [IMPORTANT]..............................12 5.0 Ground Combat Strategies ..........................................12 5.1 Basic equipment considerations..................................12 5.2 General Tactics.................................................13 5.3 Weapon Tactics.................................................16 5.4 Assault tactics.................................................18 5.5 Capturing aliens................................................19 5.6 Psi / Anti-Psi Tactics..........................................21 5.7 Different shots and different weapons...........................21 5.9 Misc. Ground Combat Questions and Answers.......................22 6.0 Research and Manufacture Strategies ...............................24 6.1 What should I research?.........................................24 6.2 Suggested Research Priorities...................................25 6.3 Research Strategies.............................................25 6.4 Research Cheat [Verified].......................................25 6.5 Manufacture Strategies..........................................26 7.0 Logistics and Material Management ................................26 7.1 Why is Elerium important?.......................................26 7.2 I keep running out of funds! What do I do?.....................26 7.3 Dealing with Equipment Shortages................................27 7.4 When to sack / retire things....................................28 7.5 Equipping Landing Crafts........................................28 9.0 Misc. questions and answers .......................................29 A. Appendix of Tables .................................................29 A.1 Base Facilities.................................................30 A.2 X-COM Crafts and Craft Weapons..................................30 A.3 UFO Types.......................................................31 A.4 Ground Combat Weapons...........................................32 A.5 Alien Information...............................................33 A.6 Costs...........................................................34 A.7 TU Usage by Activity............................................36 A.8 Profitability study.............................................36 1.0 General Information about XCOM 1.1 What is X-COM : UFO Defense? [Excerpt from X-COM manual, page 6] It is the year 1999. Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have started appearing with disturbing regularity in the night skies. Reports of violent human abductions and horrific experimentation has struck terror into the hearts of millions. Mass public hysteria has only served to expose Earth's impotence against a vastly superior technology. [...] On December 11, 1998, representatives from the world's most economically powerful countries gathered secretly in Geneva. After much debate, the decision was made to establish a covert independent body to combat, investigate, and defeat the alien threat. The organization would be equipped with the world's finest pilots, soldiers, scientists, and engineers, working together as one multi-national force. This organization was named the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit. [End Excerpt] You are in overall command of X-COM. You will launch interceptors to attack UFOs, send soldiers out to attack (crashed) UFOs, raid alien bases on Earth (if you can find them), keep the sponsor nations happy (by shooting down the UFOs and prevent terror attacks), buy the ammo and weapons you need in the war, research for better weapons as your troops brings in alien artifacts for analysis, manufacture the new weapons, pay for everything by sponsor countries' contributions and by selling excess stuff, and eventually figure out where the alien threat is coming from and end the threat once and for all. The strategic level is centered on a screen with a rotate-able / zoom-able 3D globe (GeoScape), with buttons to manipulate your bases, check UFO activity, check your funding levels from the 15 sponsoring nations, and to look up data in your on-line UFOpedia. At the tactical level (BattleScape) you control troops/tanks in 3D combat which is quite similar to Syndicate and Populous. 1.2 What's the difference between X-COM and UFO:Enemy Unknown? Nothing. UFO:EU is the European version of X-COM, where the game came from. The game is developed by Mythos Games, based in England, which is headed by Julian (Laser Squad) Gallop. The game was picked up by Microprose U.K. and imported to the US. MicroProse US changed the name because subLOGIC (the original Flight Simulator people, now R.I.P.) had a game called UFO. That one uses actual physics for its flight model (huh?!), and include this dumb little game where you gather fuel so your mother ship can leave Earth. It can use any scenery disks that you got for FS, and was never very popular any way. There is also a CD-ROM "multimedia" program called UFO that collects all those UFO pictures, interviews, and so on a while back. 1.3 What type of Amiga do I need to run it? Amiga 1200 with 2 mb ram. The game will be slow, but playable! More ram and a accelrator board will speed up the game. If you play from a 2 mb Amiga 1200, the game will make a boot disk for you. The copy protection is a code at the bottom of each odd-numbered page of the quite well written 128-page manual. * 1.4 Sounds cool, but I'd like to try it first... Im not sure if there is a playable preview of this game. If anyone got a PP, please let me know. 1.5 How about any known bugs? Well, I'v atleast found 1 horrible bug in this game, but I don't know (yet) if anyone else has the same bug. I'll try to find out. 1.5.1 The research bug [AMIGA] This is a bug that I can't ALWAYS reproduce, but it has hit me a few times now. When doing research on a Sectoid Medic, Floater Soldier (?) or anything simular, the game sometime gurus when the reasearch is complete. What happens is that when the reasearch reports pops up on your screen, you will see the info on something completely different than you researched. When you hit ok, the machine will guru. The random bug ? [AMIGA} Well, there appears to be a few random bugs in this game. - Iv lost tanks on missions where I never brought a tank. - Soldiers sometimes die without beeing shoot or leaving the xcom craft (This happend to me. A soldier died from fatal wound. He never left the ship and had other soldiers in front of him. He died on the first round. Don't ask me what happend. Maybe a bug, maybe not. 1.5.2 Intercept Save Bug [PC] This is a PC BUG. I have not tested this on the Amiga version. If anyone have found the same bug, PLEASE let me know !!! [MPS] If you save a game while an intercept in progress (i.e. craft is in the air and you minimized the window to save) the saved game is corrupt and cannot be reloaded (it will crash the computer). This probably causes the 1.5.1 Green Text Bug. Work around is DO NOT SAVE DURING INTERCEPTS. 1.5.3 The One-Shot Blaster Bug [PC] Yet another pc bug. I have not tested this one either. If anyone found this bug or can confirm that it works fine on the Amiga version please let me know !!! [FAQ] The blaster launcher, when fired with only one way point, cannot be reloaded. It will show there's no round in the weapon, but when you drop a round in the weapon it will say "Weapon is already loaded". [Net] You can actually UNLOAD the "empty" shell and drop it. See "How Do I UNload a Weapon". For now, the work around is program launch with two or more waypoints. * 1.5.4 The Flying Frozen Bug [PC] Not tested on Amiga version. Please confirm this anyone, and let me know ! [Net / SCOHN] Sometimes a soldier flying (with a flying suit, of course) or a hovertank is stuck at the edge of the map. S/he is OFF the map, and can only go up or down, but not back onto the map. S/he will recover when mission is successfully completed. No workarounds. * 1.6 Are there any patches available for those bugs? Not that I know of. If im wrong, let me know ! * 1.7 I need some help! Any saved game editors? Well, I don't know of any editors, but I have some cheats here. They include 8 bases stuffed with equipment and people working there soo you can fight off those evil aliens :-) If you want them, just email me and I'll send you a uudeocoded version or I chould upload it to Aminet if anyone is instrested. 1.8 Any plans on sequels or expansion disks? Other versions? [PC] Can anyone confirm that MPS are doing the same for the Amiga versions ? The lates news I picked up from the net was that MPS was dropping the Amiga for good. I don't know if this is the truth, but I don't hope so. MicroProse Rep on America On-Line has revealed at least one (possibly two) scenario disks arebeing developed. According to CGW's CES report, UFO2 is in the works, with better sounds and graphics, but NO CHANGE to the combat system. (Hurray!) There was some talk about a Macintosh version, but no decision has been made. Mac users who want a Mac version should contact MicroProse and voice your opinion. Try MicroProse@aol.com. As you have read from (1.1), Earth is under attack by superior technology. It is YOUR job to ensure the survival of Earth, even if it means xenocide (hey, they started it!). To achieve this, you will need to capture alien artifacts and live aliens to gain information on where they come from, and go to the source and deal with it once and for all. Of course, there are a lot of obstacles in your way, including but not limited to the following: * alien harvest and/or abduction * alien terror attacks on innocent civilians * your initial lack of technology * your limited budget * alien infiltration of governments * alien bases on earth as center of operations * and more... Each of these has a counter-strategy, which will allow you at the end to WIN. We will discuss each one in detail laster in this section. 2.1 Dealing with flying UFOs Those flashing lights in the night sky are not fun any more. Shoot them down and sort them out on the ground! See section 4.X for strategy and tactics on air combat. Once you got them on the ground, it's time to send out a boarding party to capture and kill any surviving aliens and capture any surviving alien artifacts. See section 5.X for Ground Combat Strategies and Tactics. 2.2 Dealing with landed or crashed UFOs So you manage to catch an UFO on the ground or shot one down! Great! See section 5.X for Ground Combat Strategies and Tactics. Remember that landed UFOs can take off again, and it will be hard to catch then. Also, landed UFOs usually means there is an alien base nearby. 2.3 Dealing with Terror Sites Aliens are terrorizing civilians! Just like the intro animations, your team rushes to the rescue of the defenseless civilians! See section 5.X for Ground Combat Strategies and Tactics. Just remember that civilian casualties must be avoided at all costs! 2.4 Your initial lack of technology This can only be countered by research. See 6.X for Research and Manufacture Strategies. Initially you have few options to go, but as you capture alien hardware you will get more powerful weapons to aid you in your quest to end the alien threat. 2.5 Your limited budget The countries pay you certain amount of money each month, and may increase or decrease the funding level depending on their satisfaction level of your performance. Unfortunately, that source of money is never enough. Section 7.X goes into detail on how you can make more money. 2.6 Alien infiltration of governments Aliens will attempt to force governments into abandoning the X-COM project by attacking that country mercilessly until the government signs a pact with them. As you can guess, we tried this on Hitler just before World War II. It did not work then, it will not work now, but that doesn't prevent stupid leaders from trying it. When the goverernment signs the pact it ceases to fund the X-COM project, so you may have problems... To deal with that, see 9.X Miscellaneous Questions and Answers 2.7 Alien bases on Earth Those pesky aliens have established bases on Earth! Those bases are well-hidden and only a prolonged patrol by X-COM crafts will find them. You should send soldiers to take them out as soon as possible since those act as infiltration centers. See 5.X for ground combat strategies. 3.0 Strategy on Bases 3.1 Where should I build bases? Usually you start in either Europe or North America, as those contain most of your sponsoring countries. Your second base would be in the other area. As for others, check UFO activity and see below. 3.1.1 Suggested Placement Central Europe (western USSR and all of Europe, India) North America / Rockies (USA and Canada) Japan (eastern USSR, Japan, and China) Eastern South America (Brazil) Australia (Australia and Pacific) Central Africa (South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria) 3.1.1 Ideal Placement North Pole South Pole / Antarctica Southern United States Persian Gulf North-eastern Australia Brazil, South America Central Europe Japan / USSR border 3.2 Base Types and evolution You will probably have four to six types of bases. As you play you will start upgrading them to the next level to create a more effective detection and interception network. 3.2.1 Radar/Picket base Just an access lift and some radars, plus maybe some storage for HWP defense team and/or living quarters for defending soldiers. Detect UFOs. Add more radars and defenses whenever possible. The long range radars have 450 nm range, 5% detection / 10 minutes, and short range radar have 300 nm range, 10% detection / 10 minutes. Adding more radars would improve chances of detection. A hyperwave decoder would also help. 3.2.2 Airbase Base with a hangar or two housing an Interceptor or Firestorm, used to intercept and shoot down UFOs, as well as to patrol for enemy bases. HINT: Use an empty Skyranger to tail UFOs for bases can be very effective as Skyranger has the longest range of any Terran craft. Can be improved from radar base by adding hangar(s). You would also need storage space for the craft weapons and ammo. 3.2.3 Strike base Base with at least one transport (Skyranger, Lightning, or Avenger), as well as living quarters and storage. Houses soldiers and equipment. Used to board UFOs and/or attack alien bases. Can be created from both radar base or airbase by adding a hangar for the transport. Remember to add more storage space for the increased need for weapons and ammo as well as captured artifacts. Also add alien containment in case you took prisoners. 3.2.4 Command Center The EVERYTHING base, includes research and manufacturing. Your first base is your first (and probably only) command center, where all the research and manufacturing is done. Most people have this configuration instead of 3.2.5 and 3.2.6. 3.2.5 Research Lab Some players suggested that you should separate the research facility from airbase or attack base as to minimize loss of research against alien retaliation raids which destroyed the base. Transfer objects to be researched is CHEAP, and you only need ONE of the objects to research. 3.2.6 Manufacturing / Engineering Facility You just need living quarters and workshops for the engineers, and general stores for storing the results, and maybe a hangar if you are manufacturing crafts. Transfer between bases are cheap, and you don't need anything else. A nice place to put this is Antarctica. 3.3 Base Construction Bases are the guts of X-COM defense. You must build them carefully to minimize risks while maximize possible benefits. 3.3.1 Plan for defense! Try to isolate hangars and access lifts from the rest of the base to create a choke point. For example: Design A Design B HHHHHH HHHHHH HHHHHH HHHHHH A X X XXXX XXXXXX X XXXX X XXXX XXXXXX A XXXX H=Hangars A=Access Lift X=anything else Design A: ALL vulnerable areas are concentrated to ONE part of the base, limiting possible attacks along that ONE long corridor. Design B: Isolates Hangar from Access Lift. Since hangars have no doors, blaster bombs and/or fusion tanks can destroy everything in those spaces with one shot per hangar, counting the secondaries due to the fuel drums. The access lift can be blocked by proximity grenades. 3.3.2 Watch each base carefully Plan ahead for expansion. Use the BASE INFORMATION button frequently (once every 10 game days?) and start construction of things BEFORE you actually run out. 3.3.3 Initial modifications First things you need to add to your main base are: alien containment (prisoners), general stores (more ammo and captured artifacts), and long range radar (improve detection). Later, add living quarters, labs, workshops, and defenses when needed. 3.3.4 Keep a hangar available! You should always keep a hangar SOMEWHERE available for new construction purposes. Transfer a craft between bases is free. See base types for details. 3.4 Defending a base Aliens do try to raid your base. The loss of the base means the loss of everything based on it. So what can you do to prevent the destruction of your base? Several things besides 3.3.1. 3.4.1 Build defenses You can build four types of base defenses: days cost upkeep def accuracy Missile Defense 16 200k 5k 500 50%? Laser Defense 24 900k 10k 600 60% Plasma Defense 36 1200k 12k 900 70% Fusion Defense 36 1800k 14k 1200 80% In addition, there's two more facilities that helps in Defence Grav Shield 38 2300k 15k Gives another chance of hitting Mind Shield 33 1300k 5k "Cloaks" base from alien scout [CGW] Your base defense rating should be over 2500 to successfully and consistently repel alien attacks. [KSC] I recommend over 3500, PLUS grav shields, if you don't like fighting inside your own base. Three fusion ball defense is enough. Over course of a month, I allowed alien battleships to attack my main base, which has the above. In ten tries, only ONE battleship made it through my defenses (somehow four out of six shots missed). Only eight Ethereals and one Sectopod made it down against 10 hovertanks (2 of them Fusion Ball launchers). * 3.4.2 Attack the incoming UFOs [FAQ] Usually you can detect the UFOs as they come in for the attack. Shoot them down first. If you got Hyperwave Decoders, watch for UFOs with "retaliation" missions. Those are coming after your bases. The small UFOs that come first are scouts. If they see your base, then comes the battleships. [KSC] [Not verified] If you managed to intercept the attacking UFO, stay in standoff mode, and it won't attack the base unless it outrun you. If you attack with interceptors you'll lose them. [Doug] If you think you can hold your base, you can let the UFO through and just fight the ground action. Of course, you risk getting your base wrecked, but you also get chance to capture aliens and alien equipment. [Net] In V1.0 of UFO, if you win a defend base action, you can gain thousands of units of Elerium. This is no longer true in V1.2 of UFO and X-COM. 3.4.3 Watch the "80-item limit" If the aliens made their way down, you will have to defend yourself. Only the first 80 items in storage can be used for your Defence, so this is another reason to sell off those excess inventory. Besides, you need the cash. Do NOT keep electro-flares in the warehouse as those are often the first items int he 80-item list! Lasers and HWPs are on top so keep them. 3.4.4 Keep some HWPs just in case [CGR] HWP's only take up storage space, are the first things on the storage item list (therefore always in those 80 items), and needs no personnel to control, which makes them the ideal base defenders. [KSC] Fusion Ball Launcher Hovertanks are absolutely great in base defense, being able to shoot around corners. So are blaster launchers, if you have them. 3.4.5 Booby trap the rooms! Booby trap all rooms that you must abandon, usually by throwing proximity grenades at the doors. Any alien steps in, BOOM! You can clear them by dropping a regular grenade on top of them. See Section 7.X on weapon tactics. 3.4.6 Leave some soldiers! [?] [Questionable] When a base is under alien attack, ALL crafts are evacuated ALONG WITH all soldiers and equipment onboard! To have soldiers defending the base, you need to unload them from crafts BEFORE the attack reaches your base, and make sure the base have enough ammo and guns to let them defend. See 3.4.3. [Doug] My soldiers stayed during alien base attack... Can someone verify this? 4.0 Air Combat and Intercept Strategies Air combat is an important part of X-COM. Without it, you will have very little chance of capturing any aliens or alien equipment, and thus have no progress in the game! 4.1 Intercept tactics Interception of UFOs is important. Intercepting UFOs over sponsoring countries tells them you are doing your job and keeps them happy. Successful interception and shoot-down means you can capture aliens, alien bodies, and alien equipment. Even if interception is unsuccessful you may be able to discover alien bases. 4.1.1 Feet dry! Feet dry! Try to attack an UFO over land, because if you shoot it down at sea no one can get to it. If you intercepted it over water, press minimize and click over to 1 minute time step until you ran out of fuel, it lands, it outruns you, or you got back over land. If you fly back over land, change back to 5 seconds, then commence attack! 4.1.2 Go home early When you send multiple crafts after one UFO and the UFO gets shot down, the shooter will go home, but other crafts will continue onto the crash site and THEN return. Instead, click on them and turn them back early (Return to base). They will return earlier, thus be refuled and rearmed faster for the next mission. 4.1.3 Keep Landed UFOs covered Even if an UFO has landed, keep an interceptor on top of it if possible until your landing craft arrives for the action. That way, if the UFO takes off, you still have a chance to shoot it down. 4.2 Weapons vs. target Before attacking click on the VIEW UFO button to take a look at your target before deciding whether to attack or not. Attacking with the wrong weapons means either the loss of the interceptor or the UFO totally destroyed so that nothing can be recovered. Also see 4.2.1 Very Small / Small UFOs Interceptors with Stingray missiles and cannons can only handle very small or small sized UFOs. Attacking larger UFOs means heavy damage or even destruction. 4.2.2 Medium UFOs Interceptors with Avalanche missiles can handle medium UFOs. One Avalanche will blow a very small UFO into pieces though. 4.2.3 Large UFOs Interceptors with Plasma beam and/or Avalanche missiles can handle large UFOs, but not VERY large UFOs. Plasma beam may blow small UFO into pieces. 4.2.4 Very Large UFOs Multiple Interceptors with plasma beam and/or Avalanche are needed to attack very large UFOs, and you'll probably lose a few, since one shot from battleship and the interceptor is destroyed or crippled. Interceptors with fusion ball launchers can attack very large UFOs if it does so at maximum distance, but will probably run out of ammo first since they are two shots each. The only way to "safely" attack alien battleships is to use Firestorms and Avengers, and even then you will probably be heavily damaged (as in 20% to 60% damage), even with Fusion Balls and Plasma beams. 4.3 Differences among Aggressive, Normal, and Cautious attacks The difference between Aggressive, Normal, and Cautious attacks were not explained clearly in the manual. Here's my version: 4.3.1 Cautious Attack Attack the UFO from maximum range of the available weapon(s) at a slow firing rate. Cause least damage per shot, useful when you want prisoners or attacking a small target and your weapons may be overkill. 4.3.2 Normal Attack Attack the UFO from maximum range of the available weapon(s) at standard firing rate. Cause average damage per shot, suffice for most attacks if your weapon outrange the enemy's. 4.3.3 Aggressive Attack Attack the UFO as fast as possible, as close as possible, and fire as fast as possible. Cause most damage per shot, but exposes the craft to enemy return fire. 4.3.4 Applications of each attack mode To determine which attack mode to use, you need to look at the UFO first. Click on the VIEW UFO icon and take a look at what type of UFO it is. See section A.3 for list of UFOs and recognition chart. Of all the UFOs, only battleship is a major threat to your crafts. Battleship have a weapon range of ~70 kilometers, longer than even fusion balls. NO OTHER UFO has this kind of firepower. The only way to ensure destruction of a battleship is to use Firestorm or Avenger with dual plasma beams. One shot from a battleship is enough to destroy an Interceptor, so do NOT attack battleships with Interceptors. When attacking battleships with Avengers and Firestorm, use Aggressive Attack. After several battleship interceptions with an Avenger, I've found that using Aggressive Attack with an Avenger I get approximately 40% damage (once as low as 30%) where as I usually get 60% damage in Normal attack. Firestorm got hit pretty hard against battleships, usually 50-80% damaged. All other UFOs can be safely tackled with Avanlanche missiles and plasma beams, since you can stay at maximum range and avoid their fire. Supply Ship and Terror Ship have range of ~50 km, which is the second longest, but Avalanche and Plasma beam outrange them. 4.4 Craft Weapons Tactics 4.4.1 Get Plasma Cannon quickly Plasma Cannon is THE best craft weapon in the game, with 99 shots and 54 km range. Interceptors armed with twin plasma cannons can even tackle large (though not VERY large) UFOs safely by remaining outside the UFO's weapon range. 4.4.2 Get rid of Stingray Missiles and cannons Stingrays are only good for hitting VERY SMALL and maybe SMALL UFOs due to the short range (30 for Stingray, 12 for cannon). Replace Stingray and Cannon with Avalanches as soon as possible. You can also forget about the laser cannon but at least it does not use ammo. 4.5 Finding the alien base Alien Bases can be found by two ways: X-COM agents can find an enemy base for you, or you have to send out crafts and patrol certain parts of the world. If you see a lot of UFO activity but can't get any interceptions, there's probably a base in the area. Hyperwave decoders, which can tell you what a UFO is up to, can allow you to spot the UFOs on their SUPPLY runs. Once you spot a supply UFO, use an empty Skyranger to follow it. If it disappears, go to last known coordinates and start patrolling. With a couple hours (game time) in the air you should see the base. 4.6 Keep soldiers in bases [IMPORTANT] On the Amiga version it looks like you can have them in a flying craft. They will join the defending of the base anyway. I can't confirm this, but it seems like it works this way. [PC] Equip NO soldiers for the crafts until you are ready to launch the intercept. You will lose no more than a few seconds of game time (and real-time) when you equip the craft again with the team members, and this prevents you from getting surprised when an enemy UFO attack your base and your crafts took off with all your soldiers. The same would go for the equipment as well. Unless your base has lots of spares, unequip from the craft. 5.0 Ground Combat Strategies Ground combat is arguably the most important aspect of X-COM, and probably also the most satisfying part when a successful raid has been completed. Here are some tactics and advises to keep your soldiers alive and well and keep alien body counts mounting. 5.1 Basic equipment considerations Since you only get 80 items per craft, you have to plan carefully. Also see section 7.5 for further material management strategies. Lasers are useful since they do not need ammo, saving you a lot of items. They also cause a nice amount of damage (though not as much as plasma weapons, thus the trade-off). Once you got Blaster Bombs, carry those if you can afford them. They start out as unloaded, unlike other weapons, so load them during BEFORE the battle starts. Use them to flatten buildings and fences, and to open new doors for entrances. 5.1.1 Basic Loadouts Skyranger: 2 HWPs and 6 soldiers. Divide them up to 1 HWP / 3 person fire teams, with HWP as scouts. If necessary you can split each team up further into pairs. Lightning: only one choice since this thing does not carry HWP's Avenger: 4 HWPs and 10 soldiers are good. Use 2 teams of 1 HWP and 2 soldiers, and 2 teams of 1 HWP and 3 soldiers, or you can make them all 1 HWP and 2 soldiers, with two soldier as the special weapons team with blaster bombs and/or psi attacks. 5.1.2 Rookie Training Try to always take a couple of rookies along to give them experience to boost their stats. In XCOM, you learn by doing. You want more strength? Carry heavy stuff. More accuracy? Take more shots. Soldiers with kills gain more than those without. * 5.1.3 Avoid night missions I have never ever had a Night mission on the Amiga version. Is it possible ??? [Concensus] Avoid night missions if you can. The UFO can wait until next morning or later unless they take off first. Just set the craft to patrol nearby. Aliens hold an advantage in visibility range at night (or appears to). If you ABSOLUTELY MUST, carry LOTS of electroflares and incendiary weapons. 5.1.4 Mix up the weapons Try to take along a mixed set of weaponry, like lasers, auto cannons, AND plasma guns. This way you'll be ready for all sorts of threats, as some aliens are more vulnerable to certain types of weapons than to others. See A.2 for alien tables. 5.1.5 Use Stun on Terror [!?] [CGW] When tackling terror sites, take along lots of stun weaponry and stun any civilians that you find. Alien terrorists don't attack unconscious civilians, and therefore the civilians count as "saved" at the end. Just don't drop grenades on them or fire rockets and missiles into the area. [Net] Recently someone reported that stunned civilians, upon waking up, are counted as enemy and must be killed to finish the battle. Can someone verify this? 5.1.6 Misc. Equipment * Medikits are important. In addition to healing fatal wounds they can raise morale if used on panicking troops as well as revive unconscious soldiers (hit by a stun bomb?) * Motion detectors are useful for looking behind doors and walls, but only helps if aliens moved * Mind Probe is useful in identifying alien leaders and commanders, or any specific type of alien you want to capture. Make sure you have an arsenal of stun weapons. * Proximity grenades are great for blockading large UFO doors. Just drop one next to the door and wait for them to come out 5.2 General Tactics * 5.2.1 Assign specialties to soldiers [CGW/CGR/KSC] BEFORE you go on missions, examine each solider and assign them a specialty, according to the weapons you have and the soldier's abilities. The person(s) with the most strength would carry Heavy Cannon, Auto-Cannon, or Rocket Launcher. The person(s) with the most time units would be scout, and so on. After you've decided, add a suffix to their name by clicking on the name in the solider stat display and type. For example, if "Bill Donovan" has lots of strength, make him "Bill Donovan/HW" (HW for Heavy Weapons). That way, when you arrived at the battle, you can equip the right people with the right stuff. [KSC] Here's some suggested specialties and related equipment Scout (SC) -- carry motion sensor Medic (MD) -- carry Medi-Kit Intelligence (IT) -- carry mind probe Heavy Weapons (HW) -- carry "heavy" stuff PsiCorp (PSI) -- carry psi amp for psi attacks * * PsiCorp is named after the organization in Babylon 5 :-) You can also cross-train, of course. There's no limit in the number of spots each person can hold... And real-life SEAL teams are all cross-trained any way. [SCOHN] Another way of doing this is put the TUs / Fire / Throw / Str in the person's name. For example, Bill 58/46/78/40. You may have to update the stats after every mission or so, but it helps you see a variety of skills quickly when you need to load up the landing crafts. 5.2.2 Deploying from craft [NET] Keep a grenade in hand as you deploy since sometimes there are enemies right next to your landing craft. Grenades should also be used to reduce any cover close to your craft that can hide an alien. [KSC] Only deploy two soldiers at a time. Next to the landing gears is good. If you deploy all of them at once you invite grenades and blaster bombs. Move the two away before deploying the next two. 5.2.3 Spread out and cover each other Bunch up invites enemy attack you with grenades, or worse, blasterbombs. In general, about six to eight squares apart is far enough. Aliens DO attack from behind sometimes, so try to have two troopers who can watch each other's back. This is ESPECIALLY important when going up against Chryssalids, who moves extremely fast [120 TUs!] One player reported losing the entire squad to a single Chryssalid on a terror mission... Here's a simple demonstration with a four person fire team: X X X X ===>> X X X X The two in front did not move, while the two in the back moved up beyond them for about that much distance. The recommended separation between team members is between four to six squares, and the normal leap frog distance is about that much as well. That way, when one person spots a target, most likely every one will be able to see and fire at the target. The two who stayed in place should turn around and face out and/or back to prevent rear attacks. Keep plenty of TUs for opportunity fire. 5.2.4 Use the terrain! Use whatever advantage terrain can give you. Hide behind things, use secondary explosions or fires, etc. Also see 5.2.5. If enemy is standing next to some volatile objects (fuel drum in Hangar, purple command console in UFO room or base, etc.), shoot the object instead of the alien to take advantage of the secondary explosions. Lots of things are explosive in enemy bases. Just make sure you are not close by when it goes... Hide behind other aliens can be a valid tactic, if a desperate one. Aliens do NOT check who's in their path before firing. Often they will hit and kill their comrades as they try to shoot you. It was reported that one alien shot itself while attempting to shoot down the gravlift. [KSC] Hiding behind something can be the difference between a dead soldier versus a critically wounded solider who could be saved by a medikit. NEVER if possible leave soldiers out in the open. Either use up all their TUs and get under cover or don't move at all. This also means do NOT stay in midair if you have flying suits. Also, try to leave 4 TUs so you can kneel down. It makes you a smaller target as well as improve your shooting accuracy. 5.2.5 Aliens are wishy-washy (alien movement pattern) Aliens usually move forward, take a shot, then turn 180 and move back. So, if you see them in their movement phase and don't see them in yours, move forward a little, and you may see them. For example, they move like this... visible range | S -----/-->S | | YOU S<-\---+ | 5.2.6 Leave opportunity for shots To make opportunity shots in the enemy movement phase, you need TU's left unused, as well as a high reactions rating (over 50 preferred). So leave enough for a shot while moving and still get in cover, or don't move at all. HINT: have soldiers kneeling close to UFO doors is a good way to get better reactions, if they have plenty of TUs left to shoot any aliens who comes out. This is great against Muton UFOs, as Mutons tends to come out and go back in the doors a lot. 5.2.7 Use HWP as scouts HWP's, especially the Hovertanks, are great scouts. They have 70 to 100 TU's, nice firepower, plenty of health, and are immune to alien psi attacks. On the other hand, they ARE expensive, they do NOT gain experience, and they are four space units. Don't make kills with HWP's. Their job is to SEE the enemy so the human members can then fire at them, even when it's beyond THEIR visual range. 5.2.8 Deny cover to the enemy The rocket tank and perhaps the Fusion Ball Hovertank are great for taking down buildings and walls, denying aliens places to hide. You can also use grenades and rocket launchers, or auto-cannon with explosive / incendiary ammo. [Hint] There's no penalty for destroying civilian property, so go ahead and blast all the houses into pieces if you have to, just to get that last alien on the map. Of course, don't kill any civilians in the process. [Counterpoint] While this is a game, it's NOT nice to destroy an entire building just to wipe out one last alien... X-COM is a COVERT organization, not the "Dirty Pair"... (For those of you who don't know "The Dirty Pair", they are a pair of Japanese Anime characters, who are supposed to be trouble- shooters but usually ended up wrecking the place they troubleshoot... :-) You can also use guns in the process. Lasers, consuming no ammo, are great in this role. 5.2.9 Listen to the sounds in alien movement phase The sounds in alien movement phase can reveal important clues to alien locations. Normal door clicking means the aliens are near a regular building (farm house, etc.) Hydraulic door sounds means the automatic doors were used. Two sounds close together means someone just went in and immediately came back out (or vice versa). COROLLARY : the length of the alien movement phase is also proportional to the number of aliens left on the map. (Remember that stunned aliens or civilians can wake up!) 5.3 Weapon Tactics Different weapons should be used differently and in different circumstances. Here are some suggestions on how to best employ the different weapons. 5.3.1 Pistols and Rifles Use them only when you have to, sniper style. Dump them for lasers as fast as possible. They use clips and doesn't do much damage. They may be enough to use against Sectoids, who has little armor, but not against tougher enemies. 5.3.2 Heavy Cannon More accurate than the auto-cannon and slightly more damage, but a lot less effective with only six shots and no auto-fire mode. I'd rather use the auto-cannon. 5.3.3 Auto-Cannon Probably the most effective weapon in the early game, with auto mode, three types of ammo, and 14 shot magazine. Still, 14 shots is not much in auto-mode, and three magazines can run out on you pretty quick. It is also HEAVY. Of course, auto-fired HE rounds can clear a forest REAL quick. 5.3.4 Rocket Launcher Rocket Launcher packs your biggest punch in the early game, and being an area weapon makes it invaluable in dealing with nasty Reavers and other loathsome creatures. On the other hand, you can only carry three of them, and they only fly in straight lines. Have another member carry reloads for you. 5.3.5 Laser Pistol, Laser Rifle, and Heavy Laser Forget the heavy laser. The 35% more damage that it does is offset by having no auto mode and decreased accuracy. You can probably forget the pistol also, but you need to research it to get laser rifle. Laser rifle is arguable the best squad weapon in the game, needing no ammo, with decent accuracy and damage. 5.3.6 Grenades and High Explosive Get alien grenades when you can, but regular grenades would do. Use them to flatten small buildings and take down walls so aliens have nowhere to hide. [NET] Proximity grenades should be used to block off doors and stuff so nothing can sneak up behind you. They appear to have a 2- square blast radius and 1-square sensing radius, so do NOT throw them next to the door! Throw them one square away from the door so the alien have to come out before it blows up. For example: (D=Door P=Proximity Grenade A=Alien) Alien just behind door, does NOT trigger the grenade since not in radius of 1 | AD P | Alien steps through the door, and BOOM! | DAP | I haven't found smoke grenades to be that useful. I've tried it in covering my deployment, but it doesn't seem to work that well. I've yet to use any high-explosive in any of the games I played, but [NET] has reported that they are very useful taking out Cyberdiscs in tight urban settings, due to larger blast area. 5.3.7 Plasma Pistol, Plasma Rifle, and Heavy Plasma Forget the plasma pistols. Plasma Rifle and Heavy Plasma are good weapons, and the heavy-plasma is the only heavy weapon in the game with auto mode. On the other hand, Heavy Plasma is "heavy" and normal soldier can't carry it very well. Heavy Plasma should only carried by a few select members, due to possible shortages in clips. Also, with only 80 items per craft, having so many clips around can be a problem. Heavy Plasma can punch through inner walls of UFOs when auto-fired a couple times, useful for pincer attacks. 5.3.8 Blaster Launcher Blaster launcher is probably one of the greatest weapons in the game. It is expensive, its ammo is expensive, but it is VERY useful. You can blow up things in ANY direction, turn around corners, go up and down stairs, flatten entire barns, even punch a hole in UFO's outer hull! With a bit of management one solider can carry up to 5 reloads (2 on belt and 3 in backpack). [NET] One trick is to leave the soldier and the launcher inside the craft kneeling on top of the ammo on the floor. That way there's more than 5 rounds available. Or you can have other soldiers carry more ammo, drop them on the ground, then have the launcher guy stand/kneel on top of them. You can use this trick on rocket launcher too, but it's not as useful. [NET] When attacking battleships, consider using a blaster bomb to blow open one of the engine "legs" and go up through that instead of through that large central elevator. That way you don't have to worry about attacks from 4 directions. You can also blow open other parts of UFO and go in that way instead of through the door. [KSC] Use blaster bomb to enlarge a standard door so you can fit a tank through by targetting the wall next to the door. You can also try this with heavy plasma as those can sometimes punch through walls. This is great for battleships since the large central lift allows tanks to go up to any level. 5.3.9 Small Launcher This is the only weapon that gives you standoff stun capability. Get this when you need to stun aliens. Try to back this up with a regular weapon. Stun damage counts against alien's health, and a hit can drop its health low enough so it gets stunned. 5.4 Assault tactics * Your first priority is to make sure no aliens can ambush you as you deploy. This makes HWP invaluable as they are often the first ones to exit the craft, saving your soldiers from getting shot. They also take several hits, even from heavy plasma, before being destroyed. * Your second priority is to scout and clear out the map of any stray aliens, while locating your primary objective. When boarding UFOs, the objective is the UFO itself. When attacking alien base, the objective is the alien command center. Spread out into fire teams of two soldiers or one soldier and one HWP and search. One team should guard the entrances to the objective when found. * Your third priority is to secure the objective. Leave a team guarding the entrance to the objective in case the perimeter sweep missed somebody. 5.4.1 Use a "scout" to open the door There should be one person whose specialty is open doors so that other people can shoot through the open door. The person with the best reaction and most TUs should get this job. * 5.4.2 Look "over the top" if the top's open [SCOHN] Some of the small or medium UFO that has been shot down have their tops blown open. Throwing some grenades into that opening can help you clean up any more aliens left inside. There's not that much equipment left in there any way. [KSC] If you have flying suits, you may want to go up to the upper level and see if you can see any one while standing on the edges. Four of you at separate corners can set up a great cross-fire pattern and fry / stun any aliens left inside. [NET] On larger UFOs you may want to OPEN a hole from the top with a blaster launcher. Also see 5.3.8. Many people have reported more success cleaning the UFO from the TOP down instead of bottom up, esp. battleships. 5.4.3 Aliens have no manners [open doors] Unpowered doors do not close by themselves. Therefore, if you spot an open door and you know you didn't open it, there must be an alien nearby! See also 5.2.9. 5.4.4 Look up! [KSC] On multi-level UFO and bases, you can sometimes see enemies at the upper level near grav-lifts. Multi-level UFO's with floor pieces destroyed will also allow you to look up into the higher level. If you see someone, ATTACK FIRST! [KSC] Remember to look at the upper level (view level up button), since sometimes you may have walked by the ceiling hole without realizing it. Also, watch the blast patterns in the floor and check the center of the blast pattern and turn around to look up. 5.4.5 Use your blaster bombs! Blaster bombs shoot around corners and up/down grav-lifts as well as opening up walls and stuff, so use them! Blasting new doors are great. Just remember not to bunch up so the aliens can do the same thing to you. You can do the similar things with Fusion Hover tanks but those have weaker warhead. See also 5.3.8. 5.4.6 Use your windows in the craft! [CGR/CGW] Your craft have windows, so turn your rearmost soldiers or HWPs around and take a look. This will let you know the general terrain layout before you even get out of the transport. 5.4.7 In base, find Central Command! Usually the base commander does not move from their two level command center, with a corridor all around, windows on the corridor, and a VERY large gravlift in the middle. It is very distinctive. If you can find it, and watch your back while doing so, you can probably setup ambushes all around as other aliens converge on you and head into the trap. Just don't bunch up and be blasterbomb bait. 5.5 Capturing aliens Capturing aliens will yield a lot of information, especially the medics, engineers, and leaders. Alien commanders (who are only in bases or base-establishing UFOs) are the only ones that can give you clues on how to WIN the game once and for all, so capturing aliens are very important. 5.5.1 Build Alien Containment first! Without "Alien Containment", any aliens you capture DIE upon your arrival at the base. So build alien containment as your FIRST improvement. Add alien containment to all strike bases, since prisoners are ONLY brought back to that strike team's home base. 5.5.2 How do I capture aliens? There are three ways you can capture aliens : you can shoot them and hope you only knocked them unconscious (i.e. they did NOT scream as they collapsed); you can use stun rods on them; or you can use stun bombs on them. Sometimes you will need combination of all three. NOTE: You cannot stun a Cyberdisc or a Sectopod. Those are robots, and stun charges destroy them instead. 5.5.3 WHO do I capture? You want specialists like leaders, medics, and engineers over common soldiers or terrorists. Specialists can give you more information like UFO stats and specie information. Leaders and Commanders can give you special information that will eventually lead to the final battle, and only Ethereals and Sectoid leaders / commanders can give you Psi Power. HINT: You can use a mind probe on aliens to identify their rank while they are still standing. HINT: you can also stun them then try to pick them up, which will also identify their rank. [Stuart Lamble] 5.5.4 Double-team them! Capturing, as in all fighting, requires a backup. If one fails you get another chance. This is especially important with stun rods since you must go up right next to the alien. Failing that, save enough TUs to get back to cover and hope the alien doesn't come after you or your buddies will cover you. 5.5.5 Using Stun Rods You should sneak up from behind to use Stun Rods. Have one guy in front to keep its attention, while another sneak up behind it and ZAP! This works best in the large scout UFOs (the one that looks like a plus sign) when there are TWO doors leading to the "bridge". You can also use this on panicked aliens or aliens that just shook off your mind control. HINT: Use a Mind Probe on the alien to see if it has enough TU's to fire back at you. 5.5.6 Using Stun Bombs Stun bombs frequently requires several shots in order to incapacitate one, but they are effective over an area. So if you have several aliens close to each other, one bomb can stun multiple aliens. Try to fire between them. If an alien got hit by a stun bomb and does not drop, have someone take a snap shot at it. If the shot hits and does not kill it, it'll probably drop unconscious. 5.5.7 Do NOT stun Mind-Controlled Aliens [?] Anyone know how this works on the Amiga version ? [Not Verified] Aliens under your mind control may NOT count as captured when you stun them since they are technically on your side. You MUST wait until they are no longer under mind control before stunning them for the program to count them as "captured". (Can someone try to verify this?) 5.5.8 It won't fit, lame double-brain! (Anti-Reaver tactic) When under attack by Reavers, hide in a house with a single-space door. The Reaver, being a 4-space creature, cannot go through the door, and being a HTH attacker, cannot attack you through the door or window. You can then jab it with stun rods or any weapon you feel like using. Just don't... No, not the wall! Aieee!!!!! 5.6 Psi / Anti-Psi Tactics Ethereal and Sectoid leaders can conduct psi attacks on your soldiers. To get psi powers yourself, see 6.0 Research. You will need to train your own soldiers in order to identify those with most psi potential and then further training to bring them up to speed. You will also need psi amp to conduct your own psi attacks. Once mastered, psi attacks are very powerful. Here are some suggestions in using and countering psi attacks. 5.6.1 Cause Panic Aliens who panic usually drop their weapons, and since they never pick them back up, this makes them a lot less dangerous (except for the enemy that use HTH attacks). Cause panic can also cause berzerkness, which can help you eliminate aliens nearby that alien, especially when the things it hit cause secondary explosions... :-) Cause panic is also more likely to succeed than mind control. 5.6.2 Access Mind-Controlled Enemy Inventory [Cheat / Bug] If you mind-controlled an alien, you may have noticed that you cannot access their inventory by clicking on the person icon. However, there is still a way: go through YOUR soldiers' inventory, THEN use the scroll buttons to scroll over! The alien will show up as a squad member with no armor, but with name of Race and Rank, like "Ethereal Soldier". You can drop/move their inventory like this instead of throwing. 5.6.3 Use mind-controlled aliens as scouts Mind controlled aliens should be used to go where you do NOT want to go personally. If you want it to shoot, keep the weapons. Otherwise, drop them. Use them to open doors is much safer than using one of your own. 5.6.4 Sack your psi-weaklings and cowards Sack any rookies with bravery under 40-50. They will panic first in combat. Once you have psi labs, sack rookies with the lowest psi strengths and train only those who have the highest psi strengths. Save the psi-weak veterans for attacks that you know do not involve psi-active races. This is another reason not to equip crafts until you know for sure about the mission. 5.6.5 Check for signs of mind control When an alien attempts to mind control your troop you'll see the signs. If the control did not succeed, have that soldier drop his/her weapons immediately and kneel. That way if s/he was taken over, little harm could be done. If you got the alien you can always have the soldier pick up the weapon again. HINT: panicked aliens and mind controlled soldiers NEVER EVER pick up dropped weapons. 5.7 Different shots and different weapons Which shot to take from which weapons depends a lot on the tactical situation involved. Any shot, no matter hit or not, can alert the enemy who may turn around and let loose some shots (if alien is still alive after the shot) by opportunity fire. Here's some general guidelines. 5.7.1 When to use auto-shot [KSC] Auto shot fires three rounds, but is the least accurate of the three shots. On the other hand, when you use the laws of probability, you actually come out ahead using an auto-shot, since each shot is calculated independently. For example, let's say chance of hitting in auto shot is 25%. The chance of getting at least one hit out of three is 1-(chance of no hits). Chance of 25% hit prob AND no hit in three tries is 0.75*0.75*0.75=0.42. Chance of getting at least one hit is then 1-0.42 which is 0.56, or 56%, much better than 25% and probably higher than the snap shot probability. When accuracy improves, you simply increase your chances of hitting the target multiple times, which ensures a kill. [Doug] I disagree. I believe auto shots are useless unless * You are standing next to the alien * You have a cannon with HE and wants to clear the area 5.7.2 When to use snap shot or aimmed shot [KSC] Personally, I only use snap/aimmed shot when: * I don't need the three shot overkill * There is something close or beyond the target I do NOT want hit, like an exploding object, or I only want the target hit once * I only have enough TUs to take a snap shot 5.7.3 Pistol versus Rifle debate [Doug] I like pistols because: * pistols are accurate enough at close range * since they are one-hand weapons, you can carry something in the other hand without messing up your aim, good for specialists * shots take less TUs than rifles, thus more possible shots [KSC] On the other hand: * they require a separate type of ammo (unless you are using laser pistols) which counts against your 80 item limit * they usually do not have auto mode (again, exceptions) which means the enemy can conduct opportunity fire / reaction fire * they don't cause that much damage, even if they hit [Consensus] All weapons have their place... Weight the decrease in accuracy of a rifle but increased damage versus the pistol, which has more accuracy (maybe) but less damage 5.9 Misc. Ground Combat Questions and Answers * Why do I lose ammo that I never use? After combat all clips loaded in weapons are lost, whether or not they have been used (not a great piece of design!). Thus you should unload any weapons that uses valuable ammo before the battle ends. See "How do I UNLOAD ammo from a weapon?" [SCOHN] You can tell when the battle is almost over by judging how long the alien movement phase takes. * How do I reload weapons? Make sure you have enough time units [SCOHN : You do NOT have to have the other hand free.] Drop ammo into weapon. You should hear a "reload" click. Click on the weapon in hand and it will tell you what type of ammo and how many shots are left. How do I UNLOAD ammo from a weapon? Keep the other hand empty. Click on the weapon and drop it on the UNLOAD icon to the right of the screen (just under the OK and the scroll arrows). The ammo cartridge should be in the other hand. * Some of my soldiers have TU's used before I moved them. Why? [KSC] You "overloaded" them. They have low strength yet you gave them too many things or things too heavy to carry, which decreases their TUs. Give them something lighter to carry. [SCOHN/KSC] On the other hand, soldiers gain strength by carry heavy stuff... So if there isn't much danger, train the "weak" soldiers by by giving them heavy stuff to carry and running them back and forth around the landing craft. They'll gain some strength when the battle's over. (Imagine a drill sergeant conducting training under live fire! :-D ) Why should I need grenades when I have auto cannon? [FAQ] An autocannon has very impressive firepower. However it is heavy to carry (strength 40+ recommended). A soldier equipped with a laser rifle can carry a couple of grenades and use them to flatten small buildings or other targets without needing a bulky cannon. How can I fire on aliens in their movement phase? You can carry out opportunity fire on aliens as they move. Leave enough TU's after your move for at least a snap shot, then if your trooper saw an alien and has good enough reactions s/he will fire at the alien. Use the 4 icons near the bottom left of screen to reserve the TUs. Rookies typically will not fire unless you leave them with more than half of their TUs. What's with troops missing in action (MIA)? If one of your troopers in under alien control at the end of a battle (s)he counts as MIA; therefore try to wait until (s)he is no longer in control before finishing off aliens. (This would be a bug since there's no one to control him/her any more!) Another way to get people MIA is try to take off (abort mission) with only an unconscious person in the transport. You'll lose that person as MIA as well as the transport. HINT: use MediKit to wake them up (stimulant) then march them in. See next. How do I wake up unconscious soldiers? [SCOHN / KSC] Stand over unconscious solider, use Medi-Kit, apply one shot of stimulant. Check inventory. If the "Body" is still on the ground, repeat. When the "body" is no longer there, move away. The soldier should be standing at that square next turn. S/he may need further treatment, see below. You should HEAL any fatal wounds first as those decreases health per turn, and may cause the soldier to fall unconscious again. How do I use Medi-Kit? Stand next to the soldier you need to heal (except for unconscious, see above), medikit in hand, select use. If healing, click on part in red to show number of fatal wounds in that area, then apply one dose per wound. Fatal wounds must be HEALed since they decrease health per turn (bleeding?) and can kill a soldier. You can also add painkiller to raise morale. EACH dose dispensed costs 10 TUs. See UFOpedia for applications. How do I open doors? [KSC] Target your soldier to move to the "square" behind the door and (s)he will then automatically open it (using some TUs). HINT: Do not open doors without plenty of spare TU's. Using a motion scanner will help. HINT: Create a door! Either shoot a hole in the wall or blow up the entire wall. How do I use motion scanner? [KSC] Put motion scanner in one hand, select hand, select Use Motion Scanner. It will display every movement for a radius of 9 around you. The more movement (includes your side also), the larger the blip on the scanner. The central arrow is your facing, North is top. How do I use Mind Probe? [KSC] Keep the alien visible to at least one of your soldiers (does NOT have to be the one holding the Mind Probe). Put Mind Probe in hand, select use. Click cursor on the alien (make sure the cursor square is blinking). You will see the alien's stat graph screen (TU's, armor, etc.) and their type and rank (ex: Sectoid Engineer). * How do I use the Blaster Launcher/Bomb or Fusion Hovertank? When you select Launch Missile, you can specify a series of up to 9 "waypoints" which can go around any thing, climb and dive, even fly in circles. The final waypoint is the explosion point, UNLESS it runs into something solid first. Remember that a blaster bomb can actually miss, so keep everyone WELL CLEAR of the flight path!!!!! When you are finished plotting, click LAUNCH, then enjoy the fireworks! Program it with two or more waypoints to avoid the one-shot blaster launcher bug. See 1.5. How do my soldiers improve? By doing things. They improve firing accuracy by shooting at things, strength by carrying more things, and so on. There is no concensus on whether using psi attacks improves one's psi talent yet. Those getting kills will improve more than those who did not. Therefore, try not to let HWP get a kill since you will lose a chance to let a soldier improve, and leave the easy shots (against panicked aliens, for example) to the rookies. 6.0 Research and Manufacture Strategies 6.1 What should I research? Here are the research trees that shows detailed progression. Laser Weapons Heavy Heavy Plasma Plasma | Plasma Plasma Clip Rifle Rifle Clip Laser Pistol |___________| |__________| | | | Laser Rifle | | | |__________OR___________| Heavy Laser | | | Laser Cannon Plasma Cannon (Laser Tank) (Hovertank/Plasma)* | | Laser Defense Plasma Defense Alien Alloys Blaster Blaster | Launcher Bomb Elerium 115 Personal Armor UFO Power Source |___________| |_____________|_________________| | | Fusion Ball | (Hovertank/Launcher)* Power Suit UFO Navigation | |_________________| Fusion Defense | Flying Suit Alien Elerium UFO UFO Alloys 115 Power Source Navigation |___________|___________|______________| | UFO Construction V V New Fighter Craft (Firestorm) * = [Hovertank / Plasma] | New Fighter-Transporter (Lightning) __________|____________ | | Grav Ultimate Craft Shield (Avenger) * You need "New Fighter Craft" before you can build the hovertanks. You need fusion ball launcher before you can build the fusion ball hovertank. 6.2 Suggested Research Priorities * [KSC] First, get laser weapons ASAP, then go down the list to laser rifle, No need to go further than that on that tree * [Doug] laser cannon is a GREAT money maker, See A.8 * Get alien alloy researched ASAP so you can build personal armor, which will increase your survival rate substantially. Research and build any armor that you come across ASAP. * Do not research medikits until you get at least personal armor, and probably power suit, because before then, one hit will usually kill you, giving you no chance to use medikits * You need better weapon and armor initially more than you need anything else. Concentrate research on weapons. * While plasma rifle is lighter, skip it and research heavy plasma since you would need the extra firepower. The "weaker" members can carry laser rifles instead or get some exercise * Research plasma beam immediately after you finish researching the plasma weapons. Plasma beams make interceptors much more effective and lowers its operating cost (no missile reloads) * Research small launcher/stun bomb and blaster launcher / blaster bomb when you get them (but not top priority). They are nice to have, but not essential until need to capture live aliens for more research and fights in alien bases * Motion sensor is great for ground assaults, allowing you to see behind walls and doors * Mind Probe is very useful in IDing aliens for possible capture 6.3 Research Strategies * Do not research the same thing at different bases, there is no benefit; the research is independent at each base (as is manufacturing). * Gang-research each topic. If you have 50 scientists, do NOT spread them into 5 topics of 10 each. Assign all 50 to one topic. Assign ALL scientists you have to ONE task. You'll finish each faster overall. * Add scientists whenever you can. You will probably be limited to about 50-100 scientists only, but add more if you can. Add scientists up to the maximum your living quarters can permit. 6.4 Research Cheat [Verified] If you have more than one research site, arrange transfer of scientists and/or engineers JUST before the end of the month so that they will arrive next month (check transfer times). Since salaries are deducted at the end of month for scientists/engineers at each base, no salary is paid... Saving you a TON of cash! 6.5 Manufacture Strategies * Remember that item(s) being built uses up some workshop space, so do not hire 50 engineers just because you have 50 open workshop space. You may end up with a couple engineers sitting on their hands doing nothing. * Always keep your engineers busy building something. Never let them sit idle. You need to keep them around in case of new manufacturing needs, but in the meanwhile they should earn their money's worth. See A.8 for things to make. 7.0 Logistics and Material Management 7.1 Why is Elerium important? It is a power source NOT native to the Solar System. You need it to build most alien things such as UFO power source, stun bombs, plasma clips, and more. In addition, the UFO-style crafts you get use Elerium for fuel. Since you cannot make it yourself, it is a very scarce and valuable commodity. 7.1.1 Where can I get Elerium then? Each intact engine captured can yield about 50 or so units of Elerium. Bases can contain more. Consider cautious attack in order to preserve the UFOs condition upon crash landing, or chase them until they land and keep attacking the landed ones only. Consider leaving one alien base alone and attack the landed supply ships just for Elerium. [NET] In UFO V1.0, if aliens attack your base and fail, you will get thousands of units of Elerium. This is no longer true in UFO V1.2 and XCOM. 7.1.2 How can I save Elerium? * In the air, use Interceptors only (they have longer range any way) with Avalanche missiles and lasers. Do not use the modern crafts, which needs Elerium for fuel. * [Possible Cheat] keep redirecting the craft in the air means the craft can keep flying even at 0% fuel * Plasma beam seems to need no Elerium (only when built). * On the ground, use captured equipment and laser weapons only. * Unload the clip before the battle ends so you keep the clip for a free refill. * Never sell any Elerium-based stuff that you MAY need or Elerium itself. Build stuff that requires elerium only grudgingly. (Sell extra clips since they count toward 80-item limit!) You capture lots more on each mission any way. 7.2 I keep running out of funds! What do I do? There are three ways to make money: 1) The sponsoring countries pay you each month if you keep them smiling. They may even increase payments if you make them REAL happy (i.e. get a good score) See 7.2.1. On the other hand, the amount they pay is quite little compared to your profits... 2) You can sell off excess alien artifacts for money. One raid on a large UFO can net a million bucks or more. See 7.2.2 on what to sell and what not to sell. 3) You can sell off stuff that you manufacture. This is one way to make the engineers earn their salary when they are idle. See A.8 for a profitability analysis. 7.2.1 How do I keep sponsors happy? * Intercept UFOs over their country * Shoot those UFOs down (thus discouraging further UFO presence) * Board UFOs and capture artifacts, live aliens, and dead bodies with little or no casualties (score you get at end of mission) * Attack terror sites and minimize civilian / XCOM casualties * Destroy alien bases on Earth * Prevent destruction of your own bases * Successfully research and apply alien technology You can see your score in the graphs screen. (Unfortunately there is no breakdown like the after-battle report) You can see your current funding levels in the Funding screen. 7.2.2 What alien artifacts should I sell? For non-weapon items, keeping one should be enough, since you only need one artifact for your scientists to research, so sell off the rest. Alien Entertainment, Food, and others are of no use to you except for research value. Don't bother researching those until you have nothing else to do, just sell them. Sell off all the alien bodies unless you need one for research, which probably won't happen till near the end. It's interesting to know, but not essential to the win. So just sell those bodies and research live aliens only. 7.2.3 What alien artifacts should I NOT sell? Never sell any Elerium. Practically every "useful" alien artifact that can be manufactured requires Elerium. Besides, it doesn't sell for much. Never sell any ammo that you may use unless you have plenty more. If you have 10 heavy plasmas, then you should keep between 15 and 20 HP clips. Blaster bombs and stun bombs are harder to find and usually have to be manufactured, so save those while you can. On the other hand, do NOT keep too much extra stuff because you need the cash. If you only have 10 soldiers, you don't need twenty rifles. Keep just enough weapons and ammo for the soldiers, plus grenades. Remember crafts and base have SEPARATE storage... So you may have double the amount you think you do. 7.2.4 What manufactured objects should I sell? Laser Cannon. See table A.8 for an in-depth analysis in the profitability of any manufactured object. While Fusion Bomb Hovertank has a bit more net profit, it needs Elerium. 7.3 Dealing with Equipment Shortages No equipment? Running out of equipment? Here's some hints and tips on how to deal with that. 7.3.1 What is "Not Enough Equipment to Re-Equip Squad"? Your base does not have enough inventory to keep the same amount of the equipment the team had previously onboard the craft before the mission. For example, you had 16 grenades on the Skyranger. You used up 4 on the mission, but the base only has 3 left, so base cannot reprovision you to the original stock of 16. SOLUTION: Stock up a bit more at the base. 7.3.2 I bought HWP's but I can't use them! Did you get them a full load of ammo? You cannot put HWP's onboard crafts unless you have enough ammo for each (automatically loaded). HWPs except Laser Tanks and Plasma Hovertanks require ammo. Cannon Tank needs 30 shells, Rocket Tank needs 8 rockets, and Fusion Hovertank needs 8 HWP Fusion Balls. Always keep twice or more in stock, especially HWP Fusion Balls (which must be built). 7.3.3 I keep running out of missiles for crafts! [KSC / FAQ] If you ran out of money also, use weapons that doesn't use ammo, like plasma beam and laser cannons. On the other hand, Avalanche is cheap at 9000 each and has a good punch, so stock up on those, keep 4 times capacity around. For example, Avalanche launchers holds 3 each, so Avalanche stock should be 12 per Avalanche launcher. If it doesn't fit, add a General Stores. 7.4 When to sack / retire things [KSC] Crafts that were too heavily damaged (i.e. over 50%) should be sacked and a new one hired, unless it must be manufactured and you are short on money, time, or materials. Repair time may be too long. That's one more reason to keep your engineers busy... [KSC] Rookies and squaddies who have not improved much yet were wounded heavily should be sacked / discharged and money spent on a new recruit. Remember that you still pay for each soldier even when they are in the hospital recuperating. Of course, you can try using the Transfer Trick to avoid paying for them... 7.5 Equipping Landing Crafts There's an 80-item limit on what you can take with you per craft, no matter it's a Skyranger or Avenger. Here's a couple tips on getting the most out of those 80 items: 7.5.1 Use Laser Weapons [CGW / KSC] Laser Weapons require no ammo, eliminating a large number of items. Assuming two clips per weapons, 8 plasma rifles vs. 8 laser rifles means 16 less items (2 clips each assumed). Of course laser rifles are about 33% less powerful, but 16 more items means you can take along more grenades and other things. * 7.5.2 Bring uniform weapons Don't bring both pistols and rifles, since they cannot use the same ammo and adds one more item into the equation. Bringing one more clip for one or the other is better. 7.5.3 Bring less misc. equipment [KSC] You do not need a Medi-Kit on each person, just on designated medics. You also don't need mind probes, motion detectors, and psi amps on every one, just the specialists. Remember to have a backup or two for each. [Doug] I disagree slightly. Having a medi-kit on everyone means more immediate treatment is available instead of waiting for the medic to get to you. At the minimum carry one kit per 2 soldiers. 7.5.4 Bring HWP's HWP's is just one item, yet it has lots of firepower, and ammo is included. Of course, you need to trade 4 spaces on the craft for it, but that means you bring less soldiers who would need less items, giving you even MORE itms savings. 7.5.5 Don't fight at night Fighting at night means electro-flares, and those take up a lot of the 80 items. So don't fight at night. Fighting at night is also a major pain any way. 9.0 Misc. questions and answers How do I win the game? The ultimate aim of XCOM is to research (interrogate) live aliens to find out where they are coming from and why. Grab an alien commander in an alien base. Once you interrogate a commander you should get a big clue! I still don't understand... How do I beat the aliens? *sigh* Basically, you need to research Alien Origins, The Martian Solution, then Cydonia or Bust. As you finished research on each, READ the text. See A.2 for more information. Why do I never see any large UFOs? On missions like retaliation, base and terror, small ships scout before the large ship comes in. If you destroy the scouts, no large ships will appear. Why do my soldiers rarely get promoted? To have promotions after battle you need to have a certain number of troops around all your bases for the promotion to be possible. There can be only ßone commander in all XCOM. [KSC] These numbers appears to be based on the number of soldiers XCOM has EVER HAD, rather than soldiers in employment. Rank Sergeant Captain Colonel Commander Troops needed 5 11 23 30 [Manual] HINT: Try to spread the officers out into different teams. Troops led by officers have higher morale and is less susceptible to panic, unless the officer is killed. In the Soldier's stats, what's with the 2 colors on the bars? The dark color was the soldier's ORIGINAL stats, when s/he first arrived at XCOM. The lighter colors are the stats s/he gained since then. HEALTH bar is a little different. The health bar have red indicating current health, with a pink outline denoting original health. The WHITE bar that overlays the red bar sometimes is the "STUN" bar. When the white bar reaches over the red bar, the person drops unconscious. The white bar can go up from smoke inhalation or getting hit by stun weapons. The red bar drops from taking damage. XXXX has signed a pact with the aliens! Can I get them back? Net has conflicting reports on this questions. Some have reported that if you patrol that country aggresively, shoot down all UFO you see closeby, eliminate any alien bases in that country, and so on, it may came back after a few months. Others have reported that this tactic does not seem to work. It may be related to difficulty level. I've grabbed an alien commander. Now how do I go to Cydonia? Read the text that goes under Cydonia or Bust carefully. If you do everything right, select that craft to intercept, and on the top next to CANCEL should be a button labelled CYDONIA. A. Appendix of Tables Following are series of tables for XCOM. All information are in your UFOpedia somewhere, but are presented in different forms here. The ? items have unknown values at this revision. If you see them, please notify the author so an update could be made. A.1 Base Facilities You can have up to 8 bases around the world. There are 36 (6x6) locations in each. Only hanger takes up more than one location. Name Days Build Cost Cost/month Usage Access Lift 1 300k 4k (Entrance to underground base) Living Quarters 16 400k 10k (Sleeps 50) Laboratory 26 750k 30k (Allows 50 research) Workshop 32 800k 35k (Allows 50 manufacture) Small Radar 12 500k 10k (300nm range, 5% detect/10mins) Large Radar 25 800k 15k (450nm range, 5% detect/10mins) General Stores 10 150k 5k (Holds 50 units of equipment) Alien Containment 18 400k 15k (Holds 10[!?] live aliens) Hanger 25 200k 25k (Maintains 1 craft) Missile Defence 16 200k 5k (Def value 500, Accuracy 50%) Laser Defence 24 900k 10k (Def value 600, Accuracy 60%) Plasma Defence 34 600k 12k (Def value 900, Accuracy 70%) Fusion Defense 36 1800k 14k (Def value 1200, Accuracy 80%) Grav Shield 38 2300k 15k (Gives defences an extra shot) Mind Shield 33 1300k 5k (Stop aliens finding base) Psi Lab 24 750k 16k (For troop psionics training) Hyperwave Decoder 26 2000k 30k (To evaluate alien missions) NOTE 1: In a workshop, the object being manufactured takes up some space. So you will not be able to cram all 50 engineers in there. NOTE 2: You can dismantle a facility, even when it is under construction. Simply click on the facility, and the program will ask you do you wish to dismantle it, select OK or Cancel. NOTE 3: To dismantle a base, you must remove all facilities (transferring all people and equipment elsewhere if needed) then finally remove the access lift itself. A.2 X-COM Crafts and Craft Weapons Speed Acceln Fuel Weapon Hull Cargo HWPs Skyranger 760 2 1500 0 150 14 3 Interceptor 2100 3 1000 2 100 0 0 Firestorm 4200 9 20(E) 2 500 0 0 (1) Lightning 3100 8 30(E) 1 800 12 0 (2) Avenger 5400 10 60(E) 2 1200 26 4 (3) (E) Uses elerium-115 for fuel (1) new fighter (2) new fighter/transport (3) ultimate craft Damage Range Accuracy Reload Shots [Start with] Cannon 10 10 10% 2s 200 Stingray 70 30 70% 15s 6 Avalanche 100 60 100% 20s 3 [Must Research] Laser Cannon 70 21 70% 4s 100 Plasma Beam 140 52 140% 6s 100 Fusion Launcher 230 65 230% 25s 2 NOTE 1: Match the weapon to the target. You want to force the alien to land so you can board it and recover artifacts and prisoners, not blow it into smithreens (though it might make you feel good) NOTE 2: The long range weapons, like Avalanche, Plasma Beam, and Fusion Ball Launcher, gives you advantage since UFO usually do not fire back until you are quite close. See A.3 for UFO weapon ranges. NOTE 3: It is possible to miss with weapons that have accuracy of over 100 percent, usually when target zooms out of range. A.3 UFO Types Max Hull Weapon Max Ship Speed Damage Power Range Crew Width comment Small Scout 2200 50 0 0 1 3 Like an Apollo capsule Medium Scout 2400 200 20 120 6 9 1 level, small square Large Scout 2700 250 20 272 ? 12? 1 level, like a cross Harvester 4000 500 40 176 ? 16 3 levels, top hatch Terror Ship 4800 1200 120 336 ? 30 2 levels, narrow top Supply Ship 3200 2200 60 288 ? 30 3 levels Battleship 5000 3000 140 520 ? 30 3 levels, 5 legs Abductor 4300 500 40 160 ? 12? ? Following floor plans are approximately 1x1. Any one want to do more? Please send them in, and don't forget your name so I can credit you! Legend : G = Gravlift, D = Doors, P = UFO Power Medium Scout [KSC] /-------\ | | | P | | | \---D---/ Large Scout[KSC] /---------\ | D | | | | /-----+ | +-----\ | +-------+ | | | | | | D P | D | | | | | +-------+ | \-----+ | +-----/ |--D-| | | D | \---------/ Note: Typically UFO's will not fire until you are at 1/6th of the weapon's maximum range, sometimes even less. For example, battleship usually open fire at 70 km, and terror ships at 45 km. Here's a Recognition Chart for air intercepts... Small Scout 123 (Very Small) /=\ --- Medium Scout (Small) 123456789 /=======\ |_______| Large Scout (Medium) 123456789012 (?) /===/===\===\ |___|___|___| Harvester 1234567890123456 (Medium) (?) /---|------|---\ |---|------|---| |---|------|---| \---|------|---/ Terror Ship (Large) 123456789012345678901234567890 /--------------\ /------| |------\ |____________________________| Supply Ship (Large) 123456789012345678901234567890 /--------|----------|--------\ |--------|----------|--------| |--------|----------|--------| \--------|----------|--------/ Battleship (Very Large) 123456789012345678901234567890 /----------------------------\ |----------------------------| \-------==----------==-------/ |-------||----------||-------| Abductor 1234567890123456 (Medium) (?) /---|------|---\ |---|------|---| \---|------|---/ A.4 Ground Combat Weapons (Accuracy / TU%) Aimed Snap Auto Dam Type Ammo (Capacity) Pistol 78/30 60/18 26 AP Pistol Clip (12) Rifle 110/80 60/25 35/35 30 AP Rifle Clip (20) Heavy Cannon 90/80 60/33 56 AP HC-AP (6) 52 HE HC-HE (6) 60 I HC-I (6) Auto Cannon 82/80 56/33 32/40 42 AP AC-AP (14) 44 HE AC-HE (14) 48 I AC-I (14) Rocket Launcher 115/75 55/45 75 HE Small Rocket 100 HE Large Rocket 90 I Incendiary Rocket Laser Pistol 68/55 40/20 28/25 46 Las Laser Rifle 100/50 65/25 46/34 60 Las Heavy Laser 84/75 50/33 85 Las Grenade 50 HE Smoke Grenade 60 HE! Proximity Grenade 70 HE High Explosive 110 HE Plasma Pistol 85/60 65/30 50/30 52 Plas PP clip (25) Plasma Rifle 100/60 86/30 55/63 80 Plas PR clip (30) Heavy Plasma 110/60 75/30 50/35 115 Plas HP clip (35) Blaster Launcher 120/80 200 HE Blaster Bomb Small Launcher 110/75 65/40 90 Stun Stun Bomb Alien Grenade 90 HE (AP = Armor piercing HE = High Explosive I = Incendiary) Note 1 : TU cost is always a percentage of the soldier's total TUs Note 2 : Accuracy for two-handed weapons is decrease 20% if other hand is not empty (i.e. holding something like grenades, psi amp, etc.) Note 3 : Accuracy is increased 10% if the soldier is kneeling, which takes only 4 TUs, so kneel whenever you can before you fire. A.5 Alien Information Attack Types, strengths, and weaknesses: Type Attacks with Resists Weakness Notes Sectoid Weapons Leader/Commander has psi Cyberdisc Weapons explosives Explodes when dead Floater Weapons Flies (=flying suit) Reaper HTH incend Two brains and hearts Snakemen Weapons fire/heat Carries up to 50 eggs Cryssalid HTH HE Turns humans to zombies Zombie HTH Dies -> Cryssalid Ethereal Weapons & Psi All have psi attack Sectopod Weapons plasma laser Power armored robot Muton Weapons AP Strong, work for Eths Silacoid HTH fire/incend Works with mutons Celatoid Venom The blob! Average Alien Stats ------ Armor ------ TUs Ene Hea Bra Mor Rea Fir Thr Str PSt PSk Fro Lft Rgt Rer Und Sectoid 55 90 30 80 100 65 30 60 30 ? ? 2 1 1 1 1 Reaper ?? Floater 50 90 35 80 100 50 25 60 40 - - 4 3 3 2 6 Cyberdisc 60 90 120 110 100 65 30 0 90 - - 17 17 17 17 17 Snakeman 40 80 45 80 100 45 30 65 50 - - 10 9 9 8 6 Cryssalid 110 140 95 100 100 70 0 0 110 - - 17 17 17 17 17 Zombie 40 110 85 110 100 40 0 0 85 - - 4 4 4 4 4 Ethereal 70 100 60 80 100 75 40 80 50 50 40 17 17 17 17 16 Sectopod 60 90 95 110 100 65 30 0 90 - - 70 65 65 50 45 Muton 58 90 90 80 100 60 30 60 70 - - 10 10 10 10 5 Celatoid ?? Silacoid 40 80 115 100 100 40 0 0 70 - - 25 25 25 25 5 NOTE 1: you can get info on particular alien stats by using a mind probe on them. Leaders and commanders are 10 to 20% higher, and there appears to be random modifiers. Sectoid Leader and Commander have Psi capabilities. NOTE 2: The high TUs on cryssalids allows them to move a long way and often surprise troops from behind, turning them to zombies before you can react. When killed, zombies shed their skins to become new cryssalids. NOTE 3: There does not appear to be a commander in the Muton base. Therefore Commander in a Muton base could be an Ethereal! Specialties and information possible from them: Alien Soldier ----- Alien activity Alien Medic ----- Species information * Alien Navigator ----- Hyper-Wave Decoder Alien Engineer ----- UFO stats Alien Leader ----- The Martian Solution Ethereal/ Sectoid Leader ----- Psi Lab -> Mind Shield/Psi-Amp Alien Commander ----- Cydonia or Bust ** * alien medics can give information on species other than their own ** commander can be found in bases, or UFOs on Base missions, but players have reported that only commander captured from a base can help you research "Cydonia or Bust". Alien Missions Research Generally small vehicles, least threat Harvest Great concern to governments, usually cattle abduction Abduction Abducts humans, causes great alarm Infiltration Infiltrates countries and try to make pact with government, big threat as countries that sign pact cease to fund XCOM Base Survey and establish alien base, may contain alien commander Terror Creates terror sites when lands at city Retaliation Scout / attack XCOM base, greatest threat Supply Supply alien base, trail them and patrol nearby to find alien base A.6 Costs All things are listed there. Those that can be purchased or cannot be manufactured have NO Engineer-hours. Those that must be manufactured have Engineer-hours listed. Those things that cannot be purchased nor manufactured have only sale price listed. See also A.8. Engineer Workshop Alien Sale Hours Cost Space Elerium Alloys Price [Equipment] Stun Rod - 1260 - - - 945 ElectroFlare - 60 - - - 30? Motion scanner 220 34k 4 - - 45600 Medikit 420 28k 4 - - 46500 Mind probe 1200 262k 4 1 - 304000 Psi amp 500 160k 4 1 - 194700 [Armor] Personal armor 800 22k 12 - 4 54000 Power suit 1000 42k 16 5 5 310000 Flying suit 1400 58k 16 16 5 420000 [HWP] Tank/cannon Tank/rocket Tank/laser 1200 500k 25 - - ? Hovertank/plasma 1200 850k 30 30 5 980000 Hovertank/fusion 1400 900k 30 25 8 1043000 HWP fusion bomb 400 15k 25 5 8 31500 [weapons] Pistol Rifle Grenade Proximity Grenade Smoke Grenade High Explosive Laser pistol 300 8k 2 - - 20000 Laser rifle 400 20k 3 - - 36900 Heavy laser 700 32k 4 - - 61000 Plasma pistol 600 56k 3 - 1 84000 Plasma pistol clip 60 2k 4 1 - 4440 Plasma rifle 820 88k 4 - 1 126500 Plasma rifle clip 80 3k 4 2 - 6290 Heavy plasma 1000 122k 4 - 1 171600 Heavy plasma clip 80 6k 4 3 - 9590 Blaster launcher 1200 90k 5 - 1 144000 Blaster bomb 220 8k 3 3 - 17028 Small launcher 900 78k 3 - 1 120000 Stun bomb 200 7k 2 1 - 15200 Alien grenade 200 6.7k 2 2 - 14850 [Crafts] Interceptor Skyranger FIRESTORM 14000 400k 30 - 65 -* LIGHTNING 18000 600k 34 - 85 -* AVENGER 34000 900k 36 - 170 -** [Craft Weapons] Cannon Stingray Stingray Launcher Avalanche Avalanche Launcher Laser cannon 300 182k 6 - - ? Plasma beam 500 226k 8 15 - 267300 Fusion launcher 400 242k 6 - - 281100 Fusion ball 600 28k 6 4 - 53300 [Misc] Alien alloys 100 3k 10 - - 6500 Elerium-115 - - - - - 5000 UFO power source 1400 130k 22 16 5 250000 UFO navigation 1600 150k 18 - 3 80000 Alien Surgery 20000 Alien Examination 20000 Alien Entertainment 20000 Alien Food 20000 Alien bodies 20000 * needs 1 UFO power source + 1 UFO navigation ** needs 2 UFO power sources + 1 UFO navigation Misc. Equipment Descriptions [Available at start] Stun rod has a chance to render an alien unconscious with hand-to-hand attack (i.e. go up next to it) Electro flare Lights up area at night, thrown, can be picked up [Must be researched] Motion scanner detects movement in the near vicinity, even behind doors and walls, useful when storming UFOs or buildings Medikit heals fatal wounds (heal), revives unconscious (stimulate) and boosts morale (painkiller) Elerium 115 only found on alien UFOs/bases, and needed for many important weapons and power units Mind probe when used on an alien tells you its stats and rank, useful to find an alien commander or leader Psi amp allow soldier to use psionic attacks on aliens (attempting to cause panic or get mind control), requires Psi training (see later) A.7 TU Usage by Activity Weapon Usage are listed in Section A.4 above. Equipment Usage: Medi-Kit 10 / dose Mind Probe 25% Motion Sensor 25% Movement Usage: Kneel/Stand 4 Go up Go down Turn 1 per 45 degrees Go forward Material Transfer Usage: (Thanks to reiben@vt.edu) From \ To! Hand ! Belt ! Shoulder ! Leg ! Pack ! Ground -------------------------------------------------------- Hand ! - 8 10 8 14 2 Belt ! 4 - 12 10 16 6 Shoulder ! 3 10 - 12 16 4 Leg ! 6 10 10 - 18 6 Pack ! 6 12 14 16 - 10 Ground ! 8 12 12 10 20 - A.8 Profitability study Can the writer of this article contact me for proper credit? I got this forwarded by Doug Osborne, who somehow got the article's header cut off... *--- <being included file> [ Chould someone do this for the Amiga version ?? Math ain't my strong side here in life :-) ] Recently, we at the XCOM Business Institute have seen numerous posts asking "How can I make money with my spare engineers?", and boasting "I made millions manufacturing Medikits in my basement". We at the Institute (our motto: "If it's worth doing, it's worth analyzing to death") spent all last night to bring you the following table. The basic assumption is that you are willing to support a cadre of engineers long-term in order to make a profit. Since there is a fixed amount of workshop space overhead for a given item, I couldn't come up with an exact profit per engineer hour. Instead, I calculated results for a hypothetical 2-workshop operation. You would get slightly better results with larger facilities, due to the economy of scale. Net Work Eng Raw Sale Unit Monthly Monthly Item Space Hrs Material Cost Price Profit Profit Profit --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Motion Scanner 4 220 - 34000 45600 11600 3765993 1275993 Medikit 4 420 - 28000 46500 18500 3146057 656057 Psi Amp 4 500 1E 160000 194700 29700 4242586 1752586 Personal Armour 12 800 4A 22000 54000 6000 491040 - Power Suit 16 1000 5E+5A 42000 85000 - - - Flying Suit 16 1400 16E+5A 58000 115000 - - - Alien Alloys 10 100 - 3000 6500 3500 2343600 3600 Elerium 115 - - - - 5000 - - - Laser Pistol 2 300 - 8000 20000 12000 2916480 376480 Laser Rifle 3 400 - 20000 36900 16900 3049098 534098 Heavy Laser 4 700 - 32000 61000 29000 2958994 468994 Plasma Pistol 3 600 1A 56000 84000 21500 2586020 71020 Plasma Pistol Clip 4 60 1E 2000 4440 - - - Plasma Rifle 4 820 1A 88000 126500 32000 2787278 297278 Plasma Rifle Clip 4 80 2E 3000 6290 - - - Heavy Plasma 4 1000 1A 122000 171600 43100 3078374 588374 Heavy Plasma Clip 4 80 3E 6000 9590 - - - Blaster Launcher 5 1200 1A 90000 144000 47500 2797750 332750 Blaster Bomb 3 220 3E 8000 17028 - - - Small Launcher 3 900 1A 78000 120000 35500 2846627 331627 Stun Bomb 2 200 1E 7000 15200 3200 1166592 - Alien Grenade 2 200 2E 6700 14850 - - - Mind Probe 4 1200 1E 262000 304000 37000 2202240 - UFO Power Source 22 1400 16E+5A 130000 250000 7500 310885 - UFO Navigation 18 1600 3A 150000 80000 - - - Fusion Ball L'cher 6 400 - 242000 281100 39100 6836244 4396244 Fusion Ball 6 600 4E 28000 53300 5300 617768 - Laser Cannon 6 300 - 182000 211000 29000 6760480 4320480 Plasma Beam 8 500 15E 226000 267300 - - - Tank/Laser Cannon 25 1200 - 500000 594000 94000 4371000 2406000 Hovertank/Plasma 30 1200 30E+5A 850000 980000 - - - Hovertank/Launcher30 1400 25E+8A 900000 1043000 - - - HWP Fusion Bomb 25 400 5E+8A 15000 31500 - - - The first six columns are just basic information from my version of XCOM. (Note: I have seen posts stating that UFO has higher sale prices for some items, notably armour!) The 'Unit Profit' column is just the sale price minus the cost, minus the cost of any Elerium/Alloys used in manufacture. A '-' means a unit loss, and no further analysis is necessary. The 'Monthly Profit' column is based on an "XCOM Month" of 24*31 = 744 hours. (30 days hath September, April, June, ... oh, forget it) The calculation is therefore the number of engineers that can fit in two workshops times 744 times unit profit, divided by the hours required to make one item. For example, the monthly profit for Motion Scanners is (96)(744)(11600)/220 = $1275993. The 'Net Monthly Profit' column is the bottom line. Monthly expenses are the salaries of as many engineers as fit in the workshops times $25K, plus the maintenance on 2 workshops and 2 living quarters. As you can see, Fusion Ball Launchers are the winner, narrowly edging out Laser Cannons. A profit can be made early in the game on motion scanners, however. One final note: It costs roughly $7M to hire engineers and build the facilities, so you'll need to 'borrow' some money (preferably from alien supply ships :) to get started. And before you ask, no, I am not an accountant. I write software for a living. This explains any errors there may be in the table. *--- <end included file>