Hi everyone,

I'm just starting my first game of UFO:AL, and I'm trying to go trough my first run with as little "spoiling" as possible. I loved UFO:AM story, but unfortunately in UFO:AS I read a few too many spoilers before going trough my first, which ended spoiling some of the plot twists... and it was my own damn fault.

What I was looking for was some tips in character/research/base/exploration/whatever development that would be useful, even though I surely would appreciate if you could leave out the spoilers, even if it means telling me to gear the characters development one way "just because"! :o)

Thanks guys!

Heh. Non-spoily advice is hard.

Getting scouting skill up is good, since that's both stealth and observation skill - being ambushed hurts! Not being ambushed is good, and concentrating fire until the most scary enemy goes down and stops shooting - since wounds doesn't hinder in any way. Being unconscious does.

Unspoiled tips?
Here goes.

Explore and grab as much terrain as you can when you start out.

When in tactical combat try to think of what you want to do instead of running all over the place.

Keep your troopers together for maximum fire for effect on the enemy.
But not to much together so that they can get nuked by a area of effect attack.

Don't be a hero. If you use a scout and it spots a single enemy there are sure to be more enemies around. So bring forward your heavily armed troopers and blow that single enemy to bits. Even if there isn't any other enemies around.

Stealth. Never leave home with out. But when it is broken be prepared to serious firefight or run like hell.

Know thy enemy otherwise you'll find yourself fighting a real uphill battle.

That's what I can come up with right now. But I am sure there are lots more unspoiled tips out there.

The rest I agree. This not.

If you grab too much land, your opponents will grow quickly on experience. That's because they do follow your own level of experience(little cheesy, but so it is).

In the same time, equipment & R&D depend on TIME. So the later you face the mean enemies, the better.

in other words ; grab good land where good resources are. and not much else in the beginning. Avoid unnecessary battles until you get strong. And make a turnover in your team. Avoid having 1 or 2 übersoldiers with a level much higher than others : they will net you many trouble - in the form of early arrival of strong enemies.

Ok, heres my list of advice.

When you first start out, grab one resource of each type, then train all of the techs with driving, planetary, survey etc, so they can do their jobs faster.

Even though the game tells you not to hesitate sending out rookies, your best bet is to keep the same set of soldiers throughout most of the game. Their experience will really win fights.

Do capture missions as soon as you get them. They are needed for the research to advance in certain areas.

Train your researchers in areas that applies to your current research. This will speed up the process.

When offered a trade with the reticulans, avoid the trades that asks for a resource, you won't have alot towards the beginning of the game.

Pay attention to what type of weapons work on what type of aliens. Each has its own weakness that can be exploited.

Don't wipe out one faction too early, they fight each other which can help you keep up with them.

Keep up with the ammo production, nothing worse than running out of ammo in the middle of a fight. If your soldiers can't carry enough ammo, remember you can load up stuff in the UFO to retreive during the fight.

Theres alot of different ways tactically to fight. Don't be set on standing in one place and shoot them. In one game I played cat and mouse with the overwelming odds and won.

Save often. It helps when you make big mistakes that costs you the battle.

If you can manage your resources properly, this game becomes very easy. It will take some time to learn it, but it is great that this game offers so many different strategies.

My advice is this: specialize your people. I mean, make them specialists in something and just that.
For scientists, have them train in major xxx technologies, it makes a lot of a difference.
For technicians, have a crew (4) trained in major weapon smith, you´ll be building weapons and ammo throughout the whole game. Have another crew (2 to 4) trained in major suit handling, it will lessen the time it takes to build armors when you research them.
For your soldiers, have a few heavy weapons specialists, a few snipers, a few ninjas-scouts (guys with good running and stealth), etc, then choose which trainings you will give to each class and not waste in the others. For example, a scout in light armor won´t be able to carry a rocket launcher and backup rockets, so don´t give him heavy weapons training. I used these three plus marines, balanced guys who could replace any of the other classes.

This is what i learned in my playthrough, i restarted twice untill i got the hand of the game.
And the best advice is this: Devise your own strategies, it´s the better part of the game´s fun. When you encounter new enemies probe them, keep your eyes open to what kind of weapons they attack you, how hard they hit, their attack range, etc. Knowing this and your own troops will tell you what is best.

Regards,
Alex

Keep'em coming, guys! Really interesting how specialized your tips are, too. Like some seem to have more interest in the strategic part, some in the battles etc..

Another something i observed is that most of the time aliens get hurt by their own weapon types. I mean, we humans develop firearms that hurt us plenty, so it makes sense to use them against us. This pattern holds for beastmen (they use firearms, they get hurt by them), martians (blades and emp), robots (emp), expedition (explosives, they are mostly inmune to lasers).

Funny but quite logical, is it?

True. This would only be different when somebody is gighting different species for a long time and has found their weaknesses. Otherwise you can only learn from yourself...