X-Com Apocalypse LP

[silencer_pl]

Researching the probe will get you Advanced workshop project, after that you should go for Medium Disruptor, ship shield. Then you get disruptor armour.

[Nookrium]

Making some research progress, and a new base!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJb6A6Sr69g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYuu9ubU_Y8

[silencer_pl]

At this stage I'm not sure you need second base. You have everything you need and the next thing you will only produce in quantity is Disruptor Armour. Then it's only Annihilators.

[Nookrium]

At this stage I'm not sure you need second base. You have everything you need and the next thing you will only produce in quantity is Disruptor Armour. Then it's only Annihilators.

I figured it could come in pretty handy to have it around though, if I end up getting into a rough patch again I should be able to crank out shields/armor/craft quickly enough to save me... plus, I have lots of cash at the moment.

 

 

Here's the next one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNyEKquHASw

 

Do you think equipping missiles (prophets/janitors) onto all my bikes would be wise and worth the money, or do I have a new craft coming soon enough?

[silencer_pl]

Like I said in the comments:

 

1. You have 1000 Elerium sitting in the stores.

2. Rendor plasmas are just waste of Elerium

3. Switch to Lineage it's overall way better up close for hoverbikes.

4. Prophet missiles are too few to use in mass, Janitors are weak per shot

5. The only new Ship worth producing is the Annihilator since it can carry the biggest gun aliens have, but first you need to shot down that battleship and I'm not sure what you need after Assault UFO - either bomber or destroyer (bomber is green and contains new alien type which you must capture for Toxigun C). After Disruptor Armour you can beeline to it. Follow on Ufopedia what UFOs you need to research first, then go for it. Once you have Annihilators it's just game over for the aliens.

[NKF]

I've got my hands full with the flood of spambots on the Ufopaedia.org at the moment so haven't fully caught up with the last lot of vids. But from what I've seen so far:

 

With the UFOs, there's a finite supply of them. If you destroy enough of them in the city, the aliens will reach a point where they just send all they have left at you, like those probes. UFOs respawn each week as long as a certain building in the alien dimension is still standing. If you manage to wipe out all the UFOs directly in the alien dimension, there won't be any UFO visits to the city again until the new week.

 

The Dimension Probe is a better hoverbike, but it's (comparatively) expensive and takes a long time to build. You're better off building any one of the other advanced ships. In fact you want to be completely phasing out the swarmers soon and move to smaller groups of heavily armed gunships.

 

 

With the new bases, I'd have recommended either of the two smaller warehouses near the X-Com school of fine arts, or the warehouse in the south-western part of the city. They're all very easy to defend and have more than enough space to accommodate everything you need to set up two workshops with a full compliment of engineers and agents to protect them. You're not building any of the other labs, so you don't need a lot of space.

 

Despite all that space in the base you picked, you built the workshops and living quarters right next to the lift! That could be problematic later as your engineers will very likely be starting right next to all the bad people. You want to be surrounding or blocking off the access lift from the rest of the base with security stations and put everything else as out of the way as possible so that the invaders have to really work their way into your base before they can get at your most valuable assets, the engineers.

 

With the repair bay, you only need one if you want to repair any vehicles that are parked at the new base. You don't need to do this since you can repair all your vehicles by parking them all at your main base until they are repaired. The main reason not to build one is that the repair bay functions as an access point for invaders. Putting one in will make it that much harder to control the flow of enemies entering the base.

 

- NKF

[NKF]

Finally caught up.

 

Don't forget that your newbies can also visit the main base to pick up their equipment rather than loading up a couple of mules to supply them. Send the Hawk over to pick them up, bring them to the main base, have them pick up what gear they need and then have the Hawk take them home.

 

If you're using the Hawk for combat, you want to fit it with a full compliment of shields. Just the one shield will get destroyed very quickly as you saw. The Battleship's gun does 80(!) damage a shot, and each small shield only provide 200 extra hit points. Until you build a Biotrans, I suggest ripping out the seats, bio and cargo modules and replace them with all the small shields you can fit. When you go back to pick up troops for the ground battle, swap the shields out for seats and the bio/cargo modules.Actually, check that you need the seats, as you have been using quite small teams lately.

 

Yeah, Battleship armor is tough. It completely (or almost completely) nullifies the damage from the weak weapons on most of your hoverbikes. Only the Badger was doing any real damage to it with its Medium Disrupter and Lineage Plasma.

 

Also like silencer_pl says, go with Lineage Plasma. Not Rendors or missiles. I'd recommend fitting them on a few Hawks rather than on the bikes, if only because the Hawks can survive a lot longer now that you have access to the shields, plus they carry Medium Disrupters. The bikes fall too easily, so arming them with an expensive gun may not be for the best. When fighting earlier UFOs, yes, but not against a Battleship.

 

That thing with the Battleship going white was because it was hit by a stasis missile from one of the two Escorts. When it goes white, it means that it has been temporarily frozen and cannot move or shoot.

 

Those two UFOs that were with the Battleship are a new type you haven't dealt with yet. Their gimmick is the stasis missile, which makes them annoying but otherwise they don't deal any damage. The partial invisibility is a missile jamming effect that makes it harder for missiles to lock onto them. Only missiles, not on beams or bullets.

 

I had to watch the attack again and I didn't see the Battleship make any drops. This was probably one of those missions where it just appeared to blow up random things. This isn't a bad thing as it has the potential to help your relations a bit.

 

- NKF

[Nookrium]

The Hoverbike swarm seemed to do a pretty good job of dealing with the Battleship, I'm not sure the city likes my weapon changes though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKjuxVFBcLA

[silencer_pl]

The city can take it. Problem is, can you take that huge death streak

[Nookrium]

The city can take it. Problem is, can you take that huge death streak

The "Help Wanted" posters are going back up

[silencer_pl]

I'm sure you will be needing more than just posters.

[NKF]

Looks like the most damage, apart from Transtellar, was taken by you. That slum with the ring that fell off was your new base!

 

Brutes had some shields so could have stayed in the battle if you wanted. It's only if his shields broke when not having any armor would become an issue.

 

When picking up those grenades, the Vortex mine should have been the first item you grabbed. That red star thingy. That is the most powerful explosive in the game,

 

Always pay attention to your shield conditions and watch out for green (and purple) missiles. If anyone loses a shield, immediately have a nearby agent share one and go look for a replacement. When things are quiet, take some time to let your agents rest up and refill their shields before heading out again.

 

After the carnage with squad 1 being wiped out, my first thought was that you might want to switch off 'kneel' when you're exploring. It makes it slower for agents to run away very quickly.

 

Your agents have a tendency to want to move on their when they're standing in stun gas. Agents will do the same when standing in fire. The Aliens behave the same way as well.

 

Right at the end, when you picked up that shield, you were picking at Devilkin's kit. Picking up the shield also 'removed' the shield from Devilkins pack and was therefore no longer providing any protection. If Devilkin had woken up afterwards, the shield would have been left on the floor.

 

Now that you've been introduced to Dimension Missiles and Megaspawn, you might want to rethink how you explore. When scouting the unknown, send one or two agents ahead rather than everyone. Now would also be a good time to learn to use the smoke grenade.

 

- NKF

[Nookrium]

Looks like the most damage, apart from Transtellar, was taken by you. That slum with the ring that fell off was your new base!

 

Lol, I didn't realize it was my base

 

 

Apparently the Megaspawn like to cheat too....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrAeNKiKEuo

[NKF]

With that skeletoid, the best way to have kept it down would have been to move its equipment somewhere else so that it can't grab them right away when it wakes up. Then stand someone right next to it with a stun grapples set to full auto.

 

One other trick for keeping an unconscious alien down for good is to stand on it. Not sure why it works, but it does. Though this might be considered glitch abuse.

 

If you need Disrupters and only have Toxiguns, the aliens can provide them. But in this case you had reached the top of the UFO. Shooting through the walls might have given access to the exterior of the UFO.

 

Not sure what happened with that Megaspawn, but I'd say it was a bug. Perhaps Brutes did not have line of sight to its head? It was standing right next to an overhanging bit. Actually I don't think they were ever meant to spawn on the Escort UFOs.

 

You need to research the ships in order in addition to the UFOs. So it's better to focus your research on the Biotrans first, then work on the UFOs until you unlock the Explorer, Retaliator and then Annihilator. That will also give you something to make while you wait for the next ship. For the UFOs, work your way up from the lowest UFO number.

 

- NKF

[Nookrium]

You need to research the ships in order in addition to the UFOs. So it's better to focus your research on the Biotrans first, then work on the UFOs until you unlock the Explorer, Retaliator and then Annihilator. That will also give you something to make while you wait for the next ship. For the UFOs, work your way up from the lowest UFO number.

 

Is the Biotrans worth making, or should I just wait for the Explorer, Retaliator, and annihilator before I start constructing the new ones?

[NKF]

Like I said before, it's the Skyranger of the advanced ships. It's a good ship if you want a dedicated troop carrier. It would free up the Hawk so you can outfit it entirely with shields. The Biotrans has room for 8 standard upgrade modules, which means you can use three slots for cargo, bio and seats, then the remaining 5 small shields for an extra 1000 hitpoints. That's second to the Annihilator's 1200 ~ 1400 possible shield space.

 

It's a bit overkill for the city, but you will be needing that sort of protection in the alien dimension. Trust me on that.

 

By the way, for your first visit to the alien dimension is always an info gathering trip. There's nothing for you to do there yet, so head home immediately.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

I don't remember but I don't think standing on aliens don't make them wake up. Pretty sure it doesn't work as I remember having to have someone with stun grapple guard duty.

 

As for Biotrans, I don't know is it worth making, sure it looks neat, having by default 4 bio modules and 4 cargo modules, but the game only needs 1 per mission (maybe in OpenApoc they will change that). If you can have straight path to Annihilator why waste money on something inferior? Although I think he is missing bomber for Retaliator, or does he needs destroyer (which he already got)?

 

Anyway Nook, you're next UFO should be Type 5, which gets you Explorer after BioTrans, then either UFO Type 6 or 7 (you only have 6) then UFO type 9 Battleship for Annihilator. After you will be producing Annihilators you should focus on Heavy Disruptor Beam and Big Shield. The annihilator is the only ship that can carry Heavy Disruptor Beam found on Battleship/Mothership. With 2 medium beams it's just wrecking machine. You can add alien missiles but beams do not run out of ammo and are highly accurate.

[jgatkinsn]

Awesome job fighting back! Those megaspawn are pretty rough. Can't wait to see how well you hold up using the disruptor armor.

 

Feel free to add JG and Jachin back as soldier names. I don't usually comment on Youtube, since I'm watching the videos on my TV via Kodi.

[Nookrium]

The first Mothership ventures into Mega Primus...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mYFW_0b1qI

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVa9VC162kU

 

time to go make some more thumbnails...

[NKF]

Disrupter Armor still needs shields, it's just tougher and very light. The armor parts also have enough durability to withstand the effects of 1 entropy missile. A complete suit of Disrupter Armor also provides nice High Explosive protection. If you find your shields are broken and a popper suddenly shows up, you won't have to worry about it at all. At least, as long as the durability holds out.

 

When assaulting the mothership, I kept thinking your unshielded guys should have picked up some shields a lot sooner since they seemed to be the first team the aliens could see as they exit the ship. Quite lucky you didn't have too many entropy missiles.

 

You've probably already recorded the next part, but see the alcoves on either side of the entrance to the Mothership. Megaspawn, for whatever reason, seem to end up here. With a bit of smoke, you can often sneak right up to them and they'll start running away from you. A great time to go full auto with whatever gun you have and gun them down quickly.

 

That strange noise you're hearing is quite likely from the next large alien the aliens like to employ. One I think will make you wish you had some androids on the team. Oh, and do start thinking about having someone carry a Stun Grapple on each mission. That super important alien (plot-wise, at least) that you need to capture shouldn't be too far away.

 

For your live Skeletoid that you've been longing for, the easiest way to capture one now is probably to use psi. However, your troops haven't lasted long enough to develop a really strong psi soldier so that might not be that easy to do at the moment. Still, it couldn't hurt to start switching one of your hybrids to the psi gym. With X-Com Armor, the hybrids no longer have to be as strong as they had to be to wear Megapol Armor.

 

I don't remember but I don't think standing on aliens don't make them wake up. Pretty sure it doesn't work as I remember having to have someone with stun grapple guard duty.

 

The do stay stunned. Just make sure you're standing directly on the same tile that the alien is occupying. The trick is to ensure that your agent doesn't move off the stunned alien. If they so much as move off the alien, it could get up. So aggressive stance by default. I'd not try this on an injured popper though as I think it explodes if it dies from wounds.

 

As for Biotrans, I don't know is it worth making, sure it looks neat, having by default 4 bio modules and 4 cargo modules, but the game only needs 1 per mission (maybe in OpenApoc they will change that). If you can have straight path to Annihilator why waste money on something inferior? Although I think he is missing bomber for Retaliator, or does he needs destroyer (which he already got)?

 

You only really need one of each type of storage module, plus maybe some seats.

 

I'm thinking of it more as a dedicated troop carrier with lots of extra shielding. For combat, definitely the Annihilator's the sensible way to go. No sense in wasting the defensive potential of the Annihilator by outfitting it with seats and cargo/bio modules when you can completely outfit it with shields. In any case, all the advanced ships sell for a profit so engineer time isn't completely wasted if you choose to build any of the earlier advanced ships.

 

- NKF

[Nookrium]

For your live Skeletoid that you've been longing for...

I technically don't need the live skeletoid though, right? I know it's not needed for the Toxin C, but there's nothing else that needs it?

 

 

Into the Mothership...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96cDLQ2CbFo

[NKF]

As far as I can remember, the Skeletoid is required. Ufopaedia.org has a list of the aliens needed, but since the Apocalypse section isn't as well tended to as the other sections, I'm a little apprehensive about the validity of the information.

 

The Explorer's nice. It's essentially a Hawk Air Warrior but with half the shield space. Third fastest ship in the game. I quite like it and with some careful flying and a lot of patience, a small group of 5 ~ 6 can destroy the entire UFO fleet. But at this stage, you have ready access to the Retaliator so you may as well build that instead. Then jump straight onto the Annihilators and don't look back. Three Annihilators should carry you through the rest of the game. Build as many as you need though. I find six to be a comfortable number for the late-game alien dimension weekly mop up runs.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

Ufopaedia says it require all life forms except the final alien, that comes to late and the tech you achieve from it would be appreciated in the mid game. Generally I capture all the aliens anyway before Mothership arrives so maybe I was wrong that Skeletoid is not needed.

[Nookrium]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxSGNmgQytI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRa8nvBz-lY

 

I was a little lost on what was happening with the alien dimension there for a bit, but I think I understand what's going on now. I forgot to check but I'm guessing I have more research to do to be able to do more in there.

[NKF]

I was a little lost on what was happening with the alien dimension there for a bit, but I think I understand what's going on now. I forgot to check but I'm guessing I have more research to do to be able to do more in there.

 

That's right, you have to do a bit of research before you can go to the alien dimension. You'll be researching and visiting each alien building in order from here onwards. The first visit is just to see the alien dimension. That's why your advanced ship series starts off with the Dimension probe. I'm guessing it was meant to be a cheap sacrificial vehicle you send into the alien dimension to be destroyed by the UFOs.

 

I'm surprised at what happened to that Destroyer. You did shoot it down, but your weapons weren't strong enough to vaporise it. The game's not smart enough for hostile organizations to grab the UFO before you do. Perhaps it could not find a landing spot and just vanished in a puff of logic?

 

Now for some random alien dimension tips:

 

Before you visit any alien dimension buildings, I highly recommend researching the Vortex Mine. It's the only weapon that can destroy the orange pads. You need to place the mine directly on or adjacent to the pad, as they are too tough otherwise. What are these pads you might ask? Ah - you'll see.

 

Do not under any circumstance unload your troops into any alien dimension building when you investigate them. Keep them on the ship. The building gets destroyed and your transport immediately takes off after you disable the building. Since no vehicle tubes are left behind after this, soldiers left in the building will be stranded forever.

 

There's one building with one alien that can only be captured once. Only once. It will also completely fill your containment unit.I highly suggest having a stun grapple on hand for that one and deal it with at the very end after you've cleared the map. Capturing it is not necessary to win the game, but it opens up more toxin weapons and I think is needed for some expository research that explains what's driving the aliens.

 

If you choose to hunt all the UFOs in the alien dimension, there's a quiet area along the far right edge of the map that the UFOs don't normally travel near unless they are chasing you. The lower right corner of the map is probably the safest. It's a great place for your ships to rest up and recharge their shields.

 

- NKF