Play tips (spoilers)

[SpinelesS]

Originally Posted by Shabba

You cannot change the locations of any mission, they are preset according to you game, and game time. You can always reload to get different rewards.

That isn't technically correct. While most mission locations are set in stone, some aren't. A reload can change the location of the council communication missions, and the location of the hidden UFO you find with the hyperwave relay.

[Shabba]

Yes you are correct apologises for not clarifying.
You can get different council missions, bomb disposal and escort etc from a reload. Abductions and Terror missions are always the same throughout your gametime. Mostly UFO's will have the same course throughout the particular month aswell.

[Huxy87]

Originally Posted by Breeding

Do I suck at this game or am I trying too hard to do well? I've been doing the missions that come up and choosing the mission in the country with the highest panic , but I keep losing countries. Is it unavoidable or what? Should I just be bum rushing the story objectives or trying to get some extra missions in before doing the priority objectives?

In case it hasnt been mentioned before, when you get an abduction mission and you can flick through which countries have the worse panic, I always back out and look into the situation room and see which continent has the overall highest panic. For example if the UK has 2 bars and Aus has 3 you would be inclined to go to Aus. however if you look at the continent and germany, france and russia each have 3 bars and china, india and japan only have 2 bars it would make more sense to do the uk mission as you would only need one satelite to reduce Aus to a managable level whereas you would need 3 to cover Europe.

Just think about it, you dont always get given a mission with the country with the highest panic levels on the continent, and it could be the lesser of two evils. Also in terms of rewards imo Africa and Asia are the most important to keep, whilst the US and SA are least useful.

[Renedald]

Originally Posted by Huxy87

...when you get an abduction mission and you can flick through which countries have the worse panic, I always back out and look into the situation room and see which continent has the overall highest panic..

I figured this out myself also, and it was very helpful in controlling panic. I struggled with panic initially, but once I found this out I had no issues at all with panic.

Great tip, Huxy! Wish I had thought to post it up myself to help others.

[Zosete]

I saved-scum my way through battles on classic (a bit lame, I know, but I wanted to secure a couple of achievements before i get into my third playthrough).

At the beginning geoscape was fun/challenging. I had to let 3 countries go. I stalled the game completely before attacking the base because I wanted firestorms everywhere (had missed a few UfoS and the achievement on the first playthrough).

After the base, the game was really smooth. After the end, I reloaded the last savegame to get the 40 UfoS, so I just shooted down spaceships and ignored everything. Well, even when I stopped intercepting UfoS it took me maybe 5 months and 20 ignored missions to lose 5 more countries and watch the bad endgame.

So my point is, there comes this point where it is almost impossible to lose the game. Come on! 5 months stacking cash and ignoring everything. Even if I had all my vet squad wiped out I could have managed to send 5 shivs and level up a rookie at the time.

Do you think this applies to ironman too? I don't see how I could have lost after the base was destroyed.

Also, is there a thread on intercepting? I want to know if standard interceptors "stack" on the attacks, or every interception starts over. In this case, there's no point for 4 slots in the hangar.

[J4ckyb0y1]

Originally Posted by Zosete

Also, is there a thread on intercepting? I want to know if standard interceptors "stack" on the attacks, or every interception starts over. In this case, there's no point for 4 slots in the hangar.

You launch them one at a time and each makes it's own attack on the UFO. Took 3 armed with Avengers to take down an Abductor the first time it showed up. In Classic mode.

Edit: Just now 1 Interceptor with EMP, tracking and dodge took down the Overseer with .5s remaining. Of course it shows up over the only place with no Firestorm.

[Stubbs4k]

I haven't noticed a bit of info mentioned that is highly helpful when planning your gear. Apologies if it has been covered...

The health bonus granted from gear has a major effect when taking damage and dodging a trip to the sick bay. Basically, health bonuses from gear act as a buffer. Example:

Soldier A has 10hp with none of that coming from gear, and Soldier B has 5+5hp (5hp coming from gear thus totaling 10). These numbers are completely fabricated just to quickly create an example.

Soldier A will become wounded from just a single point of damage whilst Soldier B can take up to 5 damage without becoming wounded whatsoever. Thus it is important to get health buffering gear on them when you have the chance.

[asdfen]

cool stuff
didnt think to add that info into the tips before but done it now thanks to you.

[PhilAvery]

Most of what is written so far is very good advice, but I would just like to add a few bit of my own if I may...

1) I've not seen anyone recommending suppression?

To anyone who is wondering what abilities to pick, I would highly recommend suppression for all heavies and supports. The -30% to enemy aim is a life saver in tricky situations. It can make all the difference when an enemy has got himself into a good position on you. I take 1 heavy and 2 supports with me. The fact that half my team can mess with the enemies aim is great. I would take it even if it didn't have the added bonus of a reaction shot.

Everywhere I read they seems to overlook the -30 aim saying that enemies usually hit you anyway, but they are lying...

p.s Double tap>In the zone, Holo-targeting>Bullet swarm, Anything defensive>Anything offensive.

2) When selling on the gray market, never sell flight computers, power sources or elerium. If you get to the end of the game 'efficiently/quickly' these will always be the 3 things stopping you from building the best equipment and firestorms/sat. nexus(x2). I read here someone saying 'sell it all' at the start of the game, but don't. Just sell most corpses, about half of your alloys, all 'no research benefit' items and some [but not too many] weapon fragments.

3) I agree that engineers are more important than scientists, but the slow research times this causes will leave you lacking in something during the mid-game (weapons, armour, base or interceptors), so try and help research speeds where possible in other ways (do interegations to half the time to research and maybe invest in 1 lab early on (20% reduction for 130 credits or 65 credits in europe is a bargin!)). Which leads nicely onto...

3b) When picking a starting location, think which bonus will help you at the START of the game. I would say Europe and South America are the best (half price workshops and labs is good when there's no money early on or instant interegations helps you speed up the research). The continent bonuses that help you mid-game/late-game should be left for later, as you'll get those bonuses anyway with full satellite coverage.

4) I would suggest making an alien containment early. The research credits help speed your research alot. Also research light plasma rifle instead of lasers. I know, I know, this leaves your heavies and snipers with starting guns, but it gives your assaults and supports an identical weapon to the laser rifle with a +10 aim slapped on top (free from most stunned enemies early on) and it gets you to the real plasma weapons quicker.

5) Research flight computers quite early (in the gaps when you don't really have anything else to do), but leave the power source for a little bit later. This saves your scientists a bit of time as it's tempting to do both early, but the power source is for firestorms and elerium generators (both are a little later into the game).

p.s dig for a thermo geneator early (ideally just to the left of the lift shaft on the 3rd or 4th floor).

6) Satellites are important, but I usually limit it to 2 per month. Panic control is the most important thing till you assault the alien base, then it's easy after that. Only launching 2 per month will help the most paniced countries and give you more income whilst still leaving you money to expand your base and do anything else you want to do. So mine usually looks like this:

Month 1: Starting uplink x1, Starting satellite x1 +1=2
Month 2: Uplink x2, Satellite x4
Month 3: Uplink x3, Satellite x6
Month 4: Uplink x3, Satellite x8
Month 5: Uplink x2, Nexus x1 (build nexus first, then bulldose uplink x1), Satellite x10
Month 6: Uplink x2, Nexus x2, Satellite x16

And finally...

7) There is no 'best time to assault the alien base, but I would recommend doing it in late month 3. By now you should have the light plasma rifles and 6 squad size. The drones have just been introduced, but the cyberdiscs haven't, so some of the enemy units will be 'wasted' spawning drones instead of hard enemies and the 367 credits [I think] from selling the 'no research benefit' items is still very useful at this point.

Sorry for the long post...

[PhilAvery]

Originally Posted by red_hammer

As for the Heavy - this class is a real killer!

I would have to say it's the snipers that are McAwesome... 2x snipers with squad sight, damn good ground, opportunist and double tap + Plasma sniper rifle, archangel armour and a scope would kick my arse any day of the week, but your heavies would keep missing and kick the sofa instead...

[trank]

yeah having 2 snipers all the time in your squad, works out really great.