Score & difficulty

[Dalerian]

Are game actions - such as alien invasion fleets - determined by one's score?

 

I noticed in earlier postings about being a spare parts dealer, that one of the reasons it was good was that earning money this way didn't raise the score. Why is that considered good?

[Kret]

IIRC, the aliens teched up according to your weekly score. As an example, it wouldn't be too odd to find yourself trying to shoot down UFOs using shields in the second week if your score is pretty high in the first one.

[NKF]

Yep, alien tech is released based on your score.

 

The saying "you have to walk before you run" applies here. If you do too well and get an astronomical amount of points at one time in the early stages of the game, by the time you enter the new week, the aliens will have gained access to a lot of new technology. So it's a good idea to pace things a bit and slowly raise your score so that you can keep up research-wise. If not, you'll end up being a bit behind in the arms race.

 

It's fine to let the points roll in later in the game once you've got some good technology to keep you going. But at the start, take it easy until you are able to handle it.

 

- NKF

[Dalerian]

I had a nasty feeling it was something like that.

So ... how does everyone handle it?

I'm thinking about getting a few negative scores somewhere - gun down a mob of civilians or suchlike - to keep my score only a little above the project-cancelled level. That way I might get my soldiers to catch up on stats,and my research up to date. Does anyone have better ideas?

[Blehm 98]

Don't get 2-5K points your first week like i did, i met devastators on the first thursday of the game and disrupters on the first tuesday of the game. I also was meeting transports on the first friday. It is about halfway through my first week, and i have shielded and cloaked Skeletoids and Class 6 UFOs

 

Ah, not to mention Entropy launchers. It is a very challenging and tough game, and i figured it necessary to cheat to give myself a live skeletoid research completed, and devastator research completed instantly after i finished disrupters, and it was just too hard. I cheated nowhere else

[Dalerian]

Time for the question that just might get me lynched...

 

How do I lower my score?

 

Now, before you reach for the pitchforks... Yes, I'm playing beginner level at first (I -am- a beginner!).

 

If I shoot down alien ships, I get points. If I let them download aliens, I then get sites that I have to attack.

If I attack them, I can take casualties, but there aren't many soldiers to hire yet. (Likewise if the aliens get to destroy my craft.)

 

By attacking the download sites early I get less aliens, and thus less points. That's a start.

I don't appear to have an "aliens terrorise..." misson to reduce my score, nor can I let them keep a few bases alive.

I've tried attacking the city itself - turning my weapons on the CoS temple. That seems to help a little.

Killing a civilian didn't -appear- to help, though I only tried once and may have missed it.

 

I've not tried ignoring alerts - does that reduce it? Any other ideas?

[NKF]

Never, ever, ignore an alert. But if you immediately deal with the drop sites, and then watch your charts for infiltration followed with a quick followup, you shouldn't get any sirens at all. The sirens do give you negative points - but not enough to be worthwhile.

 

First of all, avoid raiding enemies like the plague. Well, you can raid them, but don't kill them or steal a lot of their equipment.

 

If, during a mission, aliens decide to evacuate, just let them go. This doesn't affect the infiltration levels as heavily as you may think.

 

If the aliens start to open fire on the city, don't worry about it. It'll help your public relations a little, and it'll lower your weekly score a bit. The only exception would be when they're attacking your base directly.

 

By the way, you can also cut down on points by not attacking any UFOs that enter the city and only deal with the drop sites. I would suggest only capturing one of each type of UFO, but let the rest have the run of the city. This slow and steady method works, and as long as you do well in your ground missions, will keep everyone happy and will still let you win the game as long as you get the type-3 UFOs as soon as you can. The others can be taken down at any time, but the type-3 is very rare.

 

Conversely, you could deal more damage to the city by attacking the UFOs, letting your shots miss, but not shooting the UFOs down. This can lead to a public relations nightmare, as it'll upset your alliances quite a bit, and it'll damage your vehicles. Better to leave the UFOs alone for the time being.

 

My advice would be to just pace yourself and and don't try to force yourself to lower your score. Take it easy and keep your techs busy at all times.

 

- NKF

[Jasonred]

Nonono... you've got the building destruction thing backwards. What you do is, you fly your X-com craft near the buildings. So the aliens take them out. Firstly, the aliens have better firepower anyhow, so they're better at knocking over buildings. Second, it's diplomatic heaven! The corps involved will get angry with the aliens and when you attack the aliens, those corps will love you! Plus, hopefully their defence fleet will come out and plaster the alien ships.

 

AFAIK, city damage is city damage. Doesn't matter who did it.

 

(so always fly craft at lowest altitude)

 

One bad point is that weird diplomatic ties can be formed. Especially if trick the aliens into blowing up Diablo's slums... can you imagine the government becoming friends with the aliens and wanting you to stop attacking the aliens?

 

This game is different from other X-coms in that you start off with access to medkits and psionics, if I'm not mistaken. Use them. Also, DON'T FORGET TO BUY ARMOR FOR NEW TROOPS!!!

 

I never found myself needing to, but if you're desperate enough to lower your own score, you might want to try "friendly raids" aka stun raids. Several dozen rocket launchers and ammo should be enough to let you murderize those aliens.

 

Also, the early access to flying technology turns those Autocannons with Explosive Ammo into monstrosities.

 

Overall, I'd say that you DO get quite a it of good technology early on. What you need to win is TACTICS and using what you got, not more powerful guns... the only exception to this is air battles, where tactics barely come into play. So, I'm rather surprised, out of all the techs to cheat in, blehm chose devastators and disrupters. Though... if you're not doing air battles anyhow, maybe that's not too bad. mmm...

 

I'd forget NKF's advice on ignoring the alien ships. Too many people ave faced "missing" a certain type of ship in their research tree. This might be due to not downing everything they see.

 

One game, I so overdid the raiding that COS started protecting themselves with Devastators and Personal Shields. ... That was admittedly rather rough. I was desperately fighting them with machineguns and lawpistols when it occured to me to come back to the temple with psionics and make them drop their stuff. MUCH better!

[Blehm 98]

Its because the aliens were busy killing my best troops in two hits

 

And i only cheated in Devastators, not disrupters. Well, i also gave myself 50 pods for the entropy launcher

 

The truth of the matter is, i managed to slow down my score increase enough so that i'm not getting past class 5, 6, and 7 UFOs, and i managed to get 5 and 6, so i'm trying my best. However, i am still losing that game because the aliens are overwhelming my men, kill 1 a mission, injure 3-4, and after 3 missions, its pretty tough

[NKF]

Jasonred: It's only the type-3 UFO that causes any trouble because it doesn't stay around for long compared with all the others. I did recommend getting one of these down as quickly as possible and capturing it. They're not too difficult, but their escorts are. This ship is essential for starting the hybrid ship line of research - i.e. the dimension probe. After that it's just a matter of having the right hybrid ship and a sample of certain UFOs to get the better ships.

 

The other UFOs can be taken out at your leisure once you've purchased enough firepower to handle them. (read - hoverbikes, hovercars, Hawks and plenty of weapons like the lineage plasma cannons and janitor and prophet arrays)

 

Basically, take it easy and shoot down what you can, but don't force yourself to go after every UFO that pops through the gates.

 

- NKF