Starting Tips

[m00]

HI, i think we should begin to collect some tips for all the people who may come looking here for help. So i will start with a few.

 

1. Dont be shy with the use of granates. They cost nothing and are quite effective.

 

2. Use the Shotgun because at the beginning you have to go near the enemy no matter what.

 

3. Save your breath on missions where the objective is to retrieve a living alien. Because as long as you have not the technology to keep them alive you have to do it at a later time again.

 

4. If you dont want to use the save/load feature often, then when ever you go on a mission take 1 or 2 health packs with you.

 

5. Delegate missions that are far away from your borders and always take the missions that are in your own region.

 

Ok, now people write your own tips.

 

[OpTi]

get some asault rifles asap, soon as the enemy start popping up with them and you don't have them your in trouble unless you know what your doing, they have FAR greater range tan anything you get to start with.

 

capture bases early, the missions arn't hard with 1-2 rifle users and 1-2 uzi users and 1 guy with a pistol and some medpacks

 

take as much ammo and medpacks as you can carry and do multiple mission without needing to return to base to rearm. Every bit of xp counts towards your soldier getting better

 

DO NOT let sporeblowers get ANYWHERE NEAR close, think of them as floating mines

[Mike]

1. Snipers are really useful

2. By the middle of the game make sure you bring along the folding railgun

3. Do a spot of min/maxing (ie. cheat) and restart until you get start characters with good abilities.

4. Try to keep your troops alive, never use them as cannon fodder.

[zowrath]

I've never bothered with grenades much, so I'll leave those comments up to others. I started out with shotguns, but quickly switched to UZIs for range. Even with 3 soliders I took out the earlier missions with no serious problem, just keep medikits for healing. Take any mission you can possibly handle, becuase your soldiers earn XP, levels and professions which is crusial to the game. Specialize your soldiers, have 2 for sniping thus trained in marksmanship. The rest i spent on rifles and then upgraded them to heavies. Always shoot down, or atleast try, Planter UFOs because they will make life miserable for you later. There is also a chance that non-delegatable missions like base-missions will sort itself out automaticly anyway. It is like this:

1) do a mission in a neighbouring region and notice you get a semi-border around it.

2) do another mission in that region and you'll get the base-mission in that region when you are done.

3) and this is the beauty, do a third mission (not base) in that region and you get the base for free!

works all the time.

so if you got a region with 3 downed pilots, you'll get a base when you rescue all three f.ex. and do not have to do the base-mission for it.

Therefore I say do missions as far out as you can right outside your borders as soon as you are up to it. Expansion is the key. I had only one military base up to the point where I had 7 bases all in all, 3 research, 3 Engineering and 1 Military base. After that i started having more and more military bases.

Also, resarch the goodwill project asap. and alien lasers when you get them. always research and make something when you can. there's prolly a lot more, but gtg to bed

 

Z.

[systems]

My tips:

 

Strategic

1. Always take "new base" missions. Gaining bases should be a priority.

2. Have 50% of your bases as military bases. For the remainder I have 30% research 20% engineering. In the early game 40% research is better as there's little for the engineers to do.

3. Never let your bases sit idle - keep researching and developing and never stop.

4. If you have too much research, ignore the autopsies until later. Give the engineers something to do.

5. When you have more than 7 troops, keep the remainder in training. Cycle through your troops so that everyone is trained to the max.

 

Tactical

1. When you start meeting enemies with rifles, kill them and take the rifles from the corpses so you can use them immediately. Rifles are a great help in the early game.

2. If you have lots of capacity left over, carry grenades.

3. When starting a new mission, DON'T MOVE - just switch to "walk" mode and crouch. If no aliens appear within about 15 seconds then assume that your start point is secure and move your stealthy units forward.

4. "Leapfrog" your unit. Keep one half stationary acting as cover and then move the other half. Don't move them all at once until you have HEROIC observation.

5. Don't neglect the "alien" skill - this determines the damage you do.

6. Don't delegate any missions early on - the experience points are too useful. Don't delegate early on until you have researched "the fall" (or whatever it's called).