Misc. questions

[jeff303]

I finally got this game working and it has been a nice distraction from doing things I need to be doing (studying). Anyway, lots of people mention manufacturing things like Biotrans and Toxi-guns to make money. Do the prices of these items fluctuate? I've read the FAQ but I didn't quite find it. Is there a certain "lowest" price for an item? Also, what are good tactics for taking down larger UFOs with just, say, an interceptor and hawk? I've heard mention of manual control - is that what you use to fight UFO's? The auto control of the planes is insane - by the time you get the message "Valkyrie Interceptor returning to base as damaged" it's way too late. Also, many people mentioned making money off drugs obtained by raiding gangs and the cult. Do you get these items automatically after killing all hostiles or do you manually have to pick them up? I never seem to have any. Thanks.

[Brattern]

i have newer encountered drugs either. but i know that some things were cut from the game, maybe drugs was one of them?

[NKF]

So many questions, plenty of answers. Luckily I have a boring evening ahead of me...

 

*cracks knuckles*

 

 

 

 

re: fluctuation of price for manufactured items:

 

As far as I can remember, yes. They do. Although, I don't think it ever goes below the amount of money you actually spend on manufacturing the item. I cannot vouch for small things like the bio transport modules (not the ship), but ships such as the Explorer and the Annihilator will always sell a lot higher than their construction costs. Heck, even the Dimension Probe resale price is a lot better than what you spent on building it. A definite win-win scenario there.

 

As for the lowest selling price... I don't know, but I believe resale price can go as low as 50% its initial selling price. Take for example the anti-air guard cannon bullets. Their resale price starts off at $8. It'll reduce in price until it hits $4, and will remain at that price from then on.

 

 

 

 

re: Larger UFO's with Valkyrie and HawkAir Warrior

 

Okay, what sort of large UFO's are we talking about here? The type-3's or those dark-brown escorts? The carrot-shaped thingies? Bombers? Or the two capital ships?

 

Type-3's are usually very easy, but you ought to stay away from their escorts until you can arm your ships with medium disrupter beams. Believe me, those escorts are tough. If you really want to take them on, buy a few more hawk-air warriors and plenty of hardware to compensate. Also consider using a hoverbike swarm to help distract it while your big ships pound it with heavy weapons.

 

If we're talking about the capital ships, leave the Valkyrie at home. Seriously!

It cannot arm any weapon that'll harm a battleship or a mothership. It'll cripple the shields, yes, but not the hull. For that you'll need a medium disrupter beam, which is too large to fit on a valkyrie. Justice or Retribution missiles might work, but I really wouldn't risk it.

 

 

 

 

 

re: manual control

 

Manual control is hard to perform, but it does offer some benefits over letting the AI take control.

 

It's provides an easy method of having multiple units launch an offensive on one particular target. You only take control of one unit, but any ships that are selected will follow the controlled unit, and will open fire on any target that the lead unit fires on. In other words, you can concentrate your firepower.

 

Friendly fire can be a problem if you have too many units selected.

 

Another advantage is that you can manually override your gun controls should your ship get locked in stasis. Yep, you can still open fire with your guns after being hit by a statis bomb. Useful if you only have a small group of ships.

 

Speaking of manually firing guns, you will also be able to operate any missile defense guns you install onto the ship as an offensive weapon. Mind, at close range, these things are very powerful against most small ships including enemy controlled Hawk Air Warriors. They're very effective against shields. They also have an all round firing arc which rivals even the multi-plasma system.

 

For road cars, while rather useless, you can use manual control to have the car jump lanes or make u-turns without having to reach an intersection. Just be careful you don't run into another car. Even a Griffon tank will blow into a million pieces if it runs over a Blazer turbo bike.

 

 

 

 

 

re fighting enemy ships:

 

Most people just use a swarm of hoverbikes to take care of small-medium sized UFOs. When they're en masse, even poor AI isn't going to be too much of a problem. Hoverbikes are also quite cheap to replace, and if you arm them with bolter lasers, they pretty much maintain themselves.

 

In contrast to the hoverbikes, I find that a small group of gunships with heavy guns can shoot down enemy ships a lot faster when they're NOT moving. It may sound odd, but it isn't. Has something to do with fully utilising rate of fire.

 

If you can set up your ships as a sort of half-circle barricade just within the flight path of an enemy UFO, given they have enough firepower, they should be able to shoot it down very quickly once it's in firing range. Even if the UFO is able to break through the trap, it will be badly damaged.

 

While it's quite an effective tactic for your bigger ships, you'll not be able to perform this very often in the city, since you can never tell when or where a UFO is going to appear from, and time to set up the trap is definitely not a luxury you will have.

 

In which case, compromise and combine your bigger ships with a small fleet of hoverbikes and swarm away. Just pick your targets wisely. Concentrate on the troop carriers. Save your bullets and avoid the escorts until you have enough firepower to deal with them.

 

 

 

 

 

re: psiclones

 

For every building you 'attack', psiclones (or whatever specialised commodity the organisation specialises in) are generated at random 'hotspots' all around the map. These hotspots are always the same.

 

You can run to these hotspots and grab any items there for yourself, but the enemy guards will also be running about and grabbing anything that's not bolted down. Sometimes they'll evacuate and take the psiclones with them. So you'll never get those.

 

As long as the psiclones are somewhere in the map when you win the mission, you'll get them. If a soldier evacuates with on on them, you get to keep it.

 

One exception being the elerium pods. These are automatically converted into elerium for your ship plasma cannons.

 

(edit: Pardon me if I make any mistakes or generalisations. I hadn't realised it's already 1am in the morning. Off to bed with this fellow.)

 

- NKF

[jeff303]

OK. Thanks for the answers. Now a couple more...

 

I have an interceptor and a hawk and that's apparently a really bad idea. Is a swarm of bikes a better solution? I don't remember which UFO it is, but I'm having a lot of trouble trying to shoot it down without one or both of my craft being destroyed. (It's week 3 on the easiest setting - the UFO looks like a carrot still in the ground and is escorted by some other larger, more traditional looking ships with, I want to say, medium disruptor cannons). Would a bunch of bikes be better at taking this ship down? How important is it to down every UFO?

 

Also, how soon do you buy your second base? I bought mine at the beginning of week 3 (an expensive one in the top left corner that basically has room for 2x2 rooms all the way around). My second week's salary I spent on the hawk which may have been a bad move.

 

Thanks.

[NKF]

Just one interceptor and a hawk is not that good. You need at least two or three hawks plus a support crew of hoverbikes and or hovercars. I usually like to have four hoverbikes per Hawk.

 

Hoverbike swarms are good for most small to medium ships, and the stumpy carrot (which has a medium disrupter beam and later a small shield) should be simple enough for them to deal with. Although I would still prefer sending along a few heavy gunships to support them. Just let the hoverbikes charge in first so that the UFO concentrates on them. Once its preoccupied, send in the bigger ships.

 

You need to shoot down and capture one of every ufo to get some of the better hybrid aircraft. The type-3 UFO being the most important, seeing as these turn out to spawn very rarely after you hit a certain score level.

 

 

 

As for a second base: Depends on what you want to use it for and whether you have the money to maintain it.

 

I usually stick to one base for a long while until I have the money or the need to expand. See, starting off with a good base, and rearranging facilities at an early stage can help when you need to fit large labs in (I keep all research facilities in the primary base, just in case Transtellar defects).

 

I normally buy the second base as a production facility, where one or two large engineering bays are installed, then have all my engineers transferred there, leaving more space in the primary base. Since X-Com personnel have this amazing knack of cramming ANYTHING into one store module, this base only gets one, so there's plenty of space for other facilities like plasma security stations.

 

It's not a good idea to buy a new base just to get a new place to park your ships. You can do that for free anywhere on the map. Strategically placing small teams of ships at various points of the map can help. Once you get hybrid aircraft with shields, they don't even need to park and can be left hovering in the city all day long.

 

By the way, if you're parking a ship in a building, consider placing one ship per access chute. That way, when you can launch all the ships at the same time. So if a building has three ports, park three ships there. If it has twelve, twelve ships can land there and they'll all launch at the same time. Great for launching hoverbike swarms in a hurry.

 

 

 

 

To solve your cash flow problem successful raids on the cult help. Although there's a non-violent method that requires a little work, but it will not increase your score and trigger any alien technology before you're ready for it. No, not a stun raid. Become a used car parts dealer.

 

Buy all the vehicles that you don't plan to use, strip them apart and sell off their components in bulk at their individual prices. You'll get back a lot more money than what you spent purchasing them.

 

The stormdog roadcars are the best bargain. The bullets that come in the anti-airguard cannons that are standard issue for new stormdog can cost almost as much as the car itself when sold separately and in bulk.

 

Mind, their resale price can drop after a big sale, so you might want to store a few weeks worth of ammunition off of stormdogs. Then, if you're feeling lucky, sell it off all in one go at its full price and reap a massive reward.

 

Heck, even when the resale price has dropped considerably, the stormdog and its components will still can earn you a tidy profit. It's just a good idea to make use of the full resale price while you can.

 

That's what I do to earn a few extra dollars just for that extra Hawk Air warrior. That one extra ship really does make all the difference. Oh, and being stingy on ammunition expenses and using lasers for a bit, but yeah.

 

- NKF

[The Veteran]

So I see NKF has pretty much done it again... You should listen to him he's smart

I want to disagree with something though, I'm feeling argumentative...

There we go! I do not agree that used car part salesmen do better at Apocalypse than anyone else! That's what I'll disagree with!

Or were you joking?

[jeff303]

WOW! He is not joking. I bought, stipped, and sold all the stormdogs and hover cars I could find and made about $150000. Yeesh.

[The Veteran]

I make my money by manufacturing Annihilators and then selling them ten at a time.

I bankrupted the government months ago so I thought it'd be nice to buy out the city. So slowly I rose to become the richest organisation in megaprimus. But still it wasn't enough... So one by one I seeked out the richest organisations in the city... and blew them to pieces... Transtellar,nutrivend, sensovision? All gone... I bought every base in the city. All manufacturing Annihilators to sell for even more money. And now... the city is mine! :devil:

[NKF]

A real one? Nah, don't be silly. I meant in the game.

 

Oh, yeah, no one can resist buying a genuine X-Com. They've all got that ominous hum that just screams quality at you.

 

Impress your family, friends and your wallet with a brand new chrome finished X-Com Explorer, highly affordable! Sleek, sporty, and almost as fast as our industrial strength military class X-Com Annihilator.

 

Or bring the whole family along on a holiday weekend into the wastelands in a spacious and comfortable Biotrans, the all purpose family vehicle. Nutrivend Barbeque pit module sold separately.

 

Still, when you've only just begun the campaign, that vision is quite a long way off. So X-Com has to make do selling used Marsec Stormdogs. No worries, we all start small at first eh?

 

- NKF

[The Veteran]

Early on in the game I found that I could make a lot more money by selling manufactured goods than purchased goods. I started off with the biotransport module and then the personal shields and cloaking devices and ended up with the XCom vehicles.

Obviously I spent a LONG time building bio modules!

[jeff303]

Do the X-Com manufactured craft lose market value as other things? I would think eventually the annihilators would be as unprofitable as anything else.

[NKF]

I don't think so. After selling all six of my annihilators without accessories, one at a time, the sale price didn't go down at all.

 

By the way, Veteran, or anyone with mass Annihilator production facilities, could you check your game and see if the resale price for the Annihilator is still $100, 000?

 

If that is the case, then this means that 'X-Com' brand goods have stable prices.

 

Hmm, that's odd. The Annihilators aren't on the market for anyone to buy after you've sold them...

 

- NKF

[Warlord]

Are you complaining? Just imagine the next time you decide to level the CoS' temple, 4 annihilators launch from inside...

[NKF]

No, not complaining. Just curious.

 

Who'd be daft enough to give X-Com all that money to buy hybrid aircraft and then take them away? I mean, what do they do with them?

 

I know that the game's not finished, but it's still interesting to mull over the mysterious 'bugs' and 'features'.

 

- NKF

[The Veteran]

Indeed. I believe it's the Yankee government buying them so that noone can have the technology. (They presumably know no more about XCom than the other Joe Bloggs in the slum graveyards! )

[Ki-tat Chung]

its funni how the names of the creaters of xcom are on the tombstones in the slums.

[Alan]

Do the X-Com manufactured craft lose market value as other things? I would think eventually the annihilators would be as unprofitable as anything else.

 

*nods* as does everything else.

 

*flips to finance & diplomacy section*

 

Note: all price fluctutations are based on the initial value/price of each item.

 

firstly the average stock level is determined:

Average = (min + max) / 2

 

next, it determine the price change. if the current stock level is less than average the price increases.

 

Changes = average - current

if (changes > 3), then changes = 3

value = value x (100 + change)

value = value / 100

 

if the sotck level is higher than average then the price decreases:

 

changes = current - average

if (changes > 3), then changes = 3

value = value x (100 - change)

value = value / 100

 

for x-com / alien items tend to drop in price.

 

change = 0

if current >= max /2), then change = ran(2) + 3

if (current >= max), then change = ran(5) + 5

if (current >= current x 2), then change = ran(5) + 10

value = value x (100 - change)

value = value / 100

 

note: no items price can ever drop to more than half its initial price, nor can it increase to more than twice its origional price

 

*blows steam from fingers*

 

min / max values are in a table on the previous page... but i'm not gonna type all that... too much effort

[NKF]

Well, there we go. Prices fluctuate 50% either way.

 

Although, I don't think it affects X-Com manufactured aircraft.

 

I built a large number of Explorers just to test this idea out. (They cost $22,000 to build and $44,000 to sell)

 

After saturating the market with them, X-Com still charged $44, 000 for every Explorer.

 

X-Com appears to monopolise the hybrid aircraft market.

 

- NKF

[The Veteran]

Aircraft DEFINITELY don't lose value Alan... As NKF tried the Explorers I actually did my Annihilator trading inside the game. They always sell for the same amount...

[Alan]

Aircraft DEFINITELY don't lose value Alan...

 

hmm....

 

response 1: praps it doesn't apply to aircraft

 

response 2: tell that to david ellis (he wrote the guide)

[destroyteenangst]

a big way of getting money that i'm sure everyone is familar with is just plain selling off all the surplus alien technology you pick up. although it may come back to bite you in the ass when CoS or them pesky gangs come at you with devastators. when i first discovered that people actually use the technology you sell off into the market i was like "ooohhhh... shit." i hate not having a massively unfair advantage over those gangs. i just lurve swooping down on them and terrorising them, the poor dears. mwaha.

[Asmodai]

Raiding is THE best way to get cash early in the game. Once you get sheild, it's sooooooo simple. I'll just take a 24-man team into the CoS building and just do raid after raid after raid, like 5 in a row, then i fly back, unload the equipment, and fly back to raid a billion more times.