I’ve had this for the longest time but always got frusterated by it when I tried to play it. However, Lately I’m in the groove of reliving some of my childhood, and I’m curious to try it again.
So, from those who have played it and perhaps beaten it, I ask the following questions:
What the the best advice for battles on the ground?
What are the most important early research paths to give my troops competative equipment as soon as possible? When I used to play, I’d usually be put off by the fact my troops were eaten alive by the aliens due to the inferior equipment and fact that the aliens would kill my troops with a single shot. I’d like to know the best way to even those odds?
Is there any benefit to researching the aliens, either dead or alive?
Where is the best location for the intial base?
When is the intial base considered developed enough to create a 2nd base?
It’s been a LONG time since I played this, but I’ll do my best.
Always have your squadmates cover each other, and make sure that most of them still have action points left at the end of your turn - there is a button, I believe, which makes sure that your troops don’t move so far that they don’t have enough reaction time left to take a shot at a target of opportunity during the AIs turn. Try to make sure at all times that if an alien does pop up unexpectedly and attacks your troops, someone else will see where the attack came from and will be able to respond.
Research everything. You will eventually get armor that will be able to withstand hits from alien technology, and weapons that can take the enemy down easily. In the later part of the game, when you have flying powered armor, you generally outgun anything you come across (though you will usually be outnumbered).
I actually can’t remember if there were any game benefits to doing this other than learning about their weaknesses, but I think there may have been. I’m thinking you may have to research the alien biology to start researching psionics.
I don’t believe it makes THAT big of a difference, unless you put it way out in the boonies. I usually did either eastern Europe or the USA.
I hardly ever made a 2nd base, I don’t know.
When you get more powerful weapons, take advantage of their destructiveness against walls. If you know aliens are hiding in a structure, blowing a few walls down can give your guys more chances to hit them.
I never played it, but I heard it wasn’t very different from the original.
Use cover, and have someone with explosives for when you pin down aliens somewhere. Be very careful about using burst fire around civilians.
Laser weaponry. Laser Weapons -> Laser pistols -> laser rifles, and you can take down everyone up to mutons and ethereals with ease.
Live aliens open up new tech options. Dead ones tell you what weapons work well against them
I always put mine in the US, due to pay and price.
When you are a veteran player, you will maintain several strike bases with detection equipment and interceptor craft and keep large swathes of the globe clear at a time. It’s mostly a financial issue.
Heavy Plasma / Heavy Plasma Clip -> Plasma Cannon. One of these in an interceptor and you can shoot down any UFO but a battleship. If you capture a leader, hold on to him. UFO tech is good to research in your spare time. Capture landed UFOs for more stuff.
Amen to that. SAVE A LOT. Even if you follow all the other advice given in this thread, you can have half a squad wiped out just out of sheer bad luck. The door to your ship opens right in front of two nasty aliens, and whammo.
Use your squad as a team, covering each other. Move SLOWLY, keeping extra movement points at all times. Use a lot of grenades.
In addition to the all-important research into alien weaponry, here’s two important things:
Okay, here’s a slight cheat. Build a small second base as soon as you can. I choose to do so as far away from my initial site as possible (i.e., the far side of the world). All you need at first is a crew quarters, but add a general stores next month, so that you can have some weapons around for base defence if the buggers land.
Now the cheat: at about 1800 hours at the last day of each month, stop all research and manufacture of weapons at your main base. Transfer all scientists and technicians to your secondary base (or as many as you can fit into the accomodations at the secondary base). Don’t worry, you’re going to transfer them right back in a few hours, to start work again.
A quirk (deliberate or not) in the game will actually credit your budget with the salaries of all those scientists and technicians, instead of charging you for their services–so you essentially get lots of extra cash for doing nothing! (Pretend that it’s government grants!) Downside–you lose maybe 12 hours of research/production time per month; this is a small price to pay, especially if you suddenly have to buy a new Triton if a Terror Mission has gone badly…
The other biggie is you must research Psionics and build psi-labs as soon as you are capable. This will require capturing live aliens, which requires researching alien weponry…
My only other advice is don’t bunch up and stay behind cover whenever possible.
I actually prefer the sequel, “Terror from the Deep,” which is a lot harder, but I suspect that I’m in a minority.
Oops; apart from the spelling typos, I should have said “buy a new Skyranger.” Been a while since I played the first game!
Also I should have 'splained the transfer strategy more coherently: for whatever reason, the game credits you the salaries of the scientists and techies who are in transit between bases at midnight when the date changes at month-end–so that’s why you have to transfer them out very close to the end of the day on the last day of the month, timing it so they will still be “in the air” at midnight.
When they all arrive at you secondary base a few hours later, you simply re-transfer them back, and put them back to work; meanwhile, you’ve got extra cash to buy new soldiers with, or replace that lost tank.
I’m with you on this one. I’ve played all three of them (I haven’t played the x-wing game though) and I’ve found that the second is perhaps the best. This is due to smoother game play primarily. I liked the first one, don’t get me wrong, but I found it a bit easy to beat. The second one though has a flaw (IIRC) in it, which is the only detraction (IMO). The flaw was; unless you research a certain way, you’ll never find the alien base.
Then again, I’m relying on a foggy memory. I do still have the games though and every few years I’ll dust them off and give 'em a whirl…
When I first played the game for some reason researching alien metal was the last thing I did. I really regreted that. That leads to armor.
When in a battle never, NEVER, turn a corner or move into a room without the action points to run back to cover. If you turn a corner and there are ten bad guys the best thing is to just dive back to cover. Remember slow and steady.
Research Laser weapons right off the bat. Laser pistols are decent, and the laser rifle rocks. Alien Alloys will give you your first access to armor: Personal Armor, which will give your troops a chance to survive grazing shots and the like. Direct hits with heavy plasma weapons are still pretty lethal, even with the really good armor.
Live aliens are good to research. Incidentally, don’t forget that alien corpses can be sold, and you’ll accumulate a lot more of them than you really need. I always did wonder what people were doing with all the bodies I was selling…
The heavy plasma is king. Sooner or later you’ll want to use them exclusively (except the troops carrying stun launchers or blaster launchers): they have a lot of killing power and they’re astonishingly light.
The sequel is… interesting. It’s much, much harder. The aliens are smarter, and can take a lot more punishment, the weapons you start with are even more pathetic, much of the best weaponry only works underwater, and a lot of the technology is harder to get at (for example, basic armor in TFTD requires a living specimen of a specific alien). A lot of the missions have multiple parts, too.
If you finish X-Com and want a more challenging game, try TFTD.
As other people have said, a) move slowly, and keep your people covering each other, but not so close that a grenade will kill them all. b) Don’t use your entire movement for each player - either move a person only half their distance so they can still shoot, or leapfrog your units so someone always has a lot of movement points left. c) Save frequently. I’ve always intended to play an ironman game where I only save when I’m done playing for the night, and if my squad gets wiped out, too bad for me. It’ll be tough and frustrating, but hopefully rewarding in the end.
Alien alloys -> Personal Armor. Add Elerium-115 and I think you can get Power Suits and later Flying Suits. Get that as soon as possible. Regarding weapons, I usually bypass laser weapons entirely and get heavy plasma weapons off of corpses (on higher difficulties, you’re attacked with those almost immediately) and research that. It’s still possible that a direct shot can kill one of your soldiers (and when Blaster Bombs start flying around, get ready for carnage) but you can do a lot to mitigate it.
Yes; you need to capture and research a certain live alien to win the game.
Wherever you get the most funding - Western Europe or the US. Click on your ‘Funding’ link on the main menu bar and pay attention to which governments are displeased with you - they’re likely to cut their funding. The ones that you protect will give you more cash. This isn’t that important in the later game, when salvage from missions gives you a huge amount of cash, but for the first few months it can be useful.
I put up radar detection posts across the globe ASAP - usually a large radar and two small. Maybe on the poles, on Hawaii, in Africa, etc, etc. These eventually get hangers and interceptor aircraft. I’ll build a second (or a third) base with a squad of troops on the opposite side of the globe from my first once I have the money. No immediate rush.
Blaster Bombs are the best weapon in the game. They’re the only thing that can punch through the exterior walls of an alien spacecraft. Rushing the main entry of a battleship can be tough – why not fire a blaster bomb into the wall on the second floor and waltz in, guns blazing? Of course, the enemy can use them against you, and once you see the blast radius of them, you’ll respect 'em. On missions where I raid an enemy base, I rarely charge the command room - rather, I send a blaster bomb around various corners, up into the command center, and let it splash against the ceiling.
In the late game, I usually have a squad of eight soldiers equipped with Flying Suits, a heavy plasma in one hand, a psi-amp in the other, a medkit on the belt, four alien grenades, and a backup ammo clip. A ninth soldier will have a loaded Blaster launcher, a spare blaster bomb in the other hand, two on the belt, and three in the pack. A tenth soldier has a stun bomb launcher.
Once you capture a live Sectoid, you can begin psionic research. When this happens, build a Psilab ASAP. You can train up to ten soldiers at once in a psilab, and each solder has two psionic attributes - one is a random number from 1-100 and cannot change, and the other is from 1-100+ and can be trained. You’ll have to send all of your troops through psionic training to find out what their fixed psionic strength is. If it’s low, they’ll be mind controlled a lot. That sucks. If it’s high, they won’t be. You may be disappointed in that you’ll have a favorite soldier who has a low psi score, and you won’t want to take him on missions because he’ll be a liability.
Basically, consider a month of psionic training to be a screening process for potential troops, and only send people with a base psionic strength of 90+ on missions.
To continue the psionic tangent, if you mind-control an alien you can make them walk around and shoot people, but you can’t look at their inventory. However, you -can- look at the inventory of one of your soldiers, and click the arrow buttons on that screen to switch to the alien. Once there, if I want an alien dead, I’ll have him drop his guns and put a grenade in his hand. Arm the grenade for 0 seconds, drop it, and you’ve got an alien who just blew himself up.
On harder difficulties, psionics are an essential part of the game, and You Will Lose if you don’t keep this in mind. (heh, heh)
Terror from the Deep is fun, in a way. I liked the multi-stage missions. X-Com: Apocalypse had potential, but I was really disappointed by it.
if you find that you’re outclassed and having a difficult time, load your weaker soldiers’ backpack up with multiple grenades set for 0 seconds and arm them with swords or something, engage the enemy in close combat and the unit will detonate upon death…
I always placed my initial base in India. Something that most people don’t realize is that if you send out your interceptors on “patrol” that you’ll boost your standing with the country they patrol, plus give you another sphere of alien detection. Just send out one Interceptor at a time out to a point where he can hang out and check for aliens. Then when he returns send out your other interceptor on another vector. I almost never have a problem with reduced funding or withdrawn nations.
Some other tips…
Fire anyone with a Bravery below 30. Those guys are going to kill you sooner or later. Besides the obvious Bravery is key for resisting Mind Control attempts.
Don’t overlook the fact that you can rename your soldiers. Besides the obvious, it helps to give people titles like “Sniper” or “Counterattacker” to help you keep them straight.
Toss a smoke grenade out of your transport before disembarking. This is esstential! Feel free to use grenades/demolition packs to blow up buildings, except during city rescue missions. Hand Cannons/autocannons are useful long after you get high tech gear. Use explosive ammo. & carry a pistol for a back-up piece, except during night combat. Then use incendiaries. Use electroflares at night, but if you shoot a saucer down set your ship to patrol, & land during the AM. Nothing worse than a foe you can’t see.
Get laser weapons ASAP.
Build armor, & equip your troops. Assign one or two blokes as “Medics”. Arms them with a pistol (or laser pistol) in one hand, medikit in the other.
You need to do it to win. Also, provides combat intel.
Europe. Lots o’ nations, lots o’ money.
When you gots the dough, build a “Radar Base”, then let it grow. In base #1, add a long range radar. Then, create a small second base with long & short range radar wherever aliens are known to go. Add a hanger, store room, & figher. BTW–use Avalanche Missiles, not stingers.
Discard any soldier with Shooting<45, Bravery<30. List soldiers as specialists. Add a suffix after their names, & arm accordingly. Shooting 70+ = Sniper. Throwing 70+ = grenadier/. Strength 40+, AND shooting 50 + = Heavy Weapons.
Build more workshops than labs. Hire engineers to produce what goods you need. Watch your dough, & sell as much captured stuff as you reasonably can, after meeting your own needs.
Don’t be afraid to cut your losses on a mission, & retreat.
it’s been a long long time since i last played it, but any money deducted is probably covered by completing the mission successfully. shrugs but more importantly than points you would want to develop (and keep alive) a team of veteran units with high stats i think.
i remember resorting to that when i was up against a heavily armoured close combat alien i couldn’t kill otherwise, after that, i used them to check rooms for aliens with the veteran (safely behind) to cover them, and once you have the technology and the money, you wouldn’t need to use ‘such’ tactics.
oh yes, to reiterate what Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor said, do not engage the aliens at night! (unless you want to poop your pants that is)
The second one is so hard it’s almost unreal. Even with my cheating method that I developed, I could hardly make any headway into the game.
First, I always would skip over laser weapons for plasma. Get a ufo as soon as possible and study their plasma rifles and heavy plasma if they have it. If you do enough missions, you should have a steady supply of clips from the aliens.
You can make the most money from landing your troops on a ufo that’s landed. Do this as much as possible.
Normally, terror sites will stay around for about 24 hours, so you can always wait around a bit until the sun rises before landing. This will help you greatly.
One thing I noticed is that if you don’t have radars on the far side of the world, they don’t know about the aliens around them. Because of this, you don’t lose funding from UFOs that get away. I normally don’t build a second radar base until I have enough to equip it with an Interceptor.
Study alien alloys as early as you can. Higher too many scientists to study as much as possible. Once you get Heavy Plasma, Fusion weapondry for your ships and the new ships, you can fire all your scientists. I normally get up to 100 scientists as soon as I can.
If it ever says you can research blaster launchers and blaster bombs, do so. They’re the most fun you can have in the game. Just watch out for accidentally hitting walls near your own troops. It doesn’t explode into skulls for no reason.
Fusion and Plasma weapons on your interceptors can take down any ship. Just don’t get close.
If someone gets mind controlled, execute them as fast as possible. If the guy with the blaster launcher gets controlled, reload.
Invade bases. Equip everyone with blaster launchers. Don’t bother leaving the starting room except to see where to shoot.
If you really really want to cheat, there’s a way of copying files between save games where you can get an infinite amount of Elerium or anything else you’d want. I could probably figure it out again if you needed to know how.
