How do you make it early in the game

[Saber123]

i never go to terror missions till i have armor so i can have a chance but two terror missions came up and i went and i lost a man and i had no armor so i left next mission i didnt go to and i lost and i was on begginer what the hell do i do! i was just manufactoring armor too

[NKF]

You can take on terror sites with your starting equipment, with or without armour. It's just a matter of treating it as another ordinary mission, only with some enemy terror units and civilians to distract them. The key is to bring along enough firepower to take out the terror units efficiently. It's really the terror units that make it extra difficult.

 

Consider using tanks, motion scanners, smoke grenades, incendiary shells, or flares if you haven't used them before. Tanks in particular are the next best thing until you can get better armour. Send them out, and let your soldiers, who are safe in a secure area, take long range potshots at the enemy. Although expensive in the early game, tanks are expendable. Good soldiers aren't. And, even though you're supposed to be saving them, don't concentrate too much on the civilians.

 

Never ever leave a terror site unattended if you're still in the first few months. It's better to win the terror site, lose all the civilians and get a slightly negative score rather than to have a huge negative score. The country in question won't like that one bit.

 

If you really cannot handle the terror site, go anyway. Touch down, try and kill a few aliens that are outside the Skyranger, then dust off. The severity of the damage caused won't be as bad as if you left it alone.

 

- NKF

[Cazbol]

Take NKF's advice: ALWAYS respond to terror sites. They're actually the most fun missions, but also quite hard compared to crash sites. If you're afraid to lose your best soldiers, then send your worst soldiers (seriously). They'll probably do enough damage to give a vastly better score than you'd get for not showing up.

 

Find a building close to the landing craft and clear it as quickly as possible. It's best if it has more than one floors, since the upper floors give excellent cover. Put 1 or 2 guards by the stairs and the enemies will never make it up. The rest of the team the starts sniping at enemies through the windows until you stop seeing enemies. It doesn't matter if the soldiers you brought are all lousy shots. Just keep shooting at the aliens until you hit them. Once alien activity in the streets disappears, you the team moves out to clear the rest of the city.

 

If you tend to lose all you men in these mission and therefore also the landing craft, then you may want to establish you perimeter around the Skyranger rather than in a building as I suggested. Keep one guy kneeling in the back of the Skyranger, so if everyone on the outside gets killed the last man in the Skyranger can take off and save the craft.

 

Cazbol

[Solfius]

this is what I need good tactical advice! see the problem is although I like the game, i'm not that good at it (never really tried to get good at it, wish i still had a copy i'm working on it though!)

[The Veteran]

Grenades... And don't research laser, just go straight for plasma weapons. Armour isn't as important as weapons and the medkit should be at the bottom of your list of priorities. Early on in the game the troops who are hit rarely survive long enough for them to be effective.

[Warlord]

I have to disagree with you TJ. Laser weapons are the most important early research project besides alien alloys and armor. I often use laser weapons until I have just about everything else researched. Unless you're fighting mutons, the Laser rifle is enough firepower for most anything you'll come across. Also, the Laser tank is a considerable improvement over the cannon tank, and is very effective on terror sites, and even base defense.

[Tammy]

I love laser weapons. Plenty of firepower for most things, and I don't have to carry ammo. Laser tanks, huh? I don't think I've bothered with those. Sounds promising, though.

[Manolis]

Laser tanks are actually the best tanks in the game. Yes they don't hover like more advanced tanks but their firepower is excellent, and the need for no ammo is a great relief. They come pretty early in the game too.

 

And of course, heavy laser rocks! While laser rifle has autoshot, the heavy laser is the weapon for the squad's sniper. Not much accuracy, but it deals lots of damage. Also the laser cannon is an excellent craft weapon and when sold you gain a *lot*of money.

 

Long Live Laser weapons!!!

[The Veteran]

Give me 315 rounds of plasma anyday! And it flies!!!!

 

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[Ki-tat Chung]

go plasma! any way, at the start, all i ever needed at terror sites were the basic rifle, basic 'nades, flares and that was it. i never got to use the smoke 'nades.

[The Veteran]

The only 'nades I ever use in UFO are the alien grenades. Although I must admit proximity mines are great fun! Especially when you can cordon off corridors...

How did you do it with just rifles Ki-tat? My rifle terror sites lasted hours of planning and I still lost people!

[Ki-tat Chung]

oh yea...i forgot about the prox 'nades. anyway, i'm starting from beginner to super human, and i'm still in beg, so that's prob why.

[Solfius]

I have to admit, i rarely compltete a game on any of the more dificult settings, but as long as I enjoy myself thats all i care about

[InsaneLapin]

what am I doing early in the game? CHEAT !!!

[Ki-tat Chung]

geez....cheat? that bad?

[Solfius]

at the moment i'm on beginner and i'm losing lots of people, any suggestions for things i might be doing wrong?

[The Veteran]

I've just started on super human and it's not easy... I've not lost many men so far though which is good. The only thing I do to try and save myself is always take a tank along because, lets face it new tanks just cost money, new men need training.

Also take your time over the level you are doing. Unless it's a terror site then there is no hurry at all. Just go slowly and steadily. Even on terror sites I've found the best way to go about it is not to go too quickly (despite what I said earlier) take the buildings one by one, whenever you see a live civilian track them. Whenever you see a dead one be on your guard and keep the live civvies and dead civvies as far apart as possible!

[Solfius]

i find that to survive a terror site i have to move fast else my men start getting grenaded before they can spread out, or worse they get psychicly attacked and go nuts

[Orac]

at the moment i'm on beginner and i'm losing lots of people, any suggestions for things i might be doing wrong?

Sometimes you lose men no matter what. Depending upon your playstyle, how you go through the research tree can make a huge difference.

 

For me, I find my survival rate goes way up if I go straight for laser weaponry right off the bat. Then go in the direction of getting power and flying suits. At some point I like to get motion scanners and medikits. Usually get those right before my research toward power suits is completed.

 

It's about a balancing act between protection and offensive capabilities. Offensive capabilities help in that you can kill the aliens faster which mean less chance for them to kill you, however good protection give you many more chances to kill them.

 

You can actually make mince meat out of Mutons in nighttime jungles with a squad only armed with laser rifles and ACs. If they've got at least power suits, and you are good about covering each other, you can do such a mission without any casualties, even with brand spanking new rookies.

 

Medikits also help.

 

What I'd do is get laser weaponry right off the bat (I prefer to get all the soldier-based laser weapons - laser pistols, laser rifles, and heavy lasers, you can worry about cannons later on). Then get your personal armor. Then get motion scanners and medi-kits. Get aliens grenades somewhere in there too. Then put all your research efforts toward getting power armor. As for flying suits, they don't seem critical, but can be an added bonus. They have a little better armor than power suits, but take a considerabl e amount more elerium to produce. Might want to give a few of your men flying suits though.

 

Anyway, once you get power armor, the game become a huge step toward becoming easier for you men to survive. Even with laser rifles, they can put the hurt to the aliens good without suffering hardly any casualties if they have power and/or flying suits.

 

Personal armor is practically useless IMHO. Your men generally only survive slightly less easy than their default coveralls. I see personal armor as nothing more than a stop-gap solution until you get power armor. It's better than coveralls, but not by much. 'Cause with power suits, it's not all that uncommon for a soldier to have a grenade land near them, or getting nailed by heavy plasma, and they suffer no serious wounds. Whereas with personal armor, it's not all that common for a soldier in that same situation to survive at all. With personal armor, you're just praying they only get seriously wounded instead of being instantly dead. Keep in mind power armor isn't miracle armor, cause they can outright die if they get nailed good, but it tends to happen less often by and large. Seems like the aliens have to get good solid hits on them. Whereas if they even graze your foot in the other type you're as good as dead half of the time

 

So I guess my tip for bringing up your survival rate is to get good protection and have your men cover each other more. Also use motion scanners before entering doors there could be aliens behind. In fact, do scans for a few turns prior to get an idea of what the aliens are up to and to try to plan so you'll be in conact with them on your turn instead of theirs.

 

One thing about having your men cover each other. Be a little careful about bunching them up. It's usually around that time the aliens like to chuck grenades at them. With that said, don't be afraid to bunch them up either when it works in your favor. Just keep in mind that the aliens have the same limitations as you do with them.

 

-at least one of them has to have spotted your men. If one of them sees those men, then they all do and it may be an alien you don't see (an alien that didn't directly spot them, but has the knowledge of their position because one of his buddies did spot them) that does the actual grenade chucking.

 

-Just how it takes you considerable TUs to prime and then throw a grenade, it takes the alien many. Beware though, that some aliens have lots of TUs in their stats.

 

-Tanks also have a tendency to attract explosives and grenade from the aliens. So be careful about getting your men close to your tanks.

 

-Speaking of, since in this game I haven't used tanks, I can't remember the last time an alien chucked a grenade at my men. I've even been more sloppier than usual about not spreading them out well.

 

-Best thing of all is to try to form all of your men into a reasonably well spread out column formation, and have them all move from one side of the map to the other. There of course is going to be buildings and obstacle along the way that will prevent it in many cases, but that's where you adjust their formation to compensate. The added advantage of thinking and playing in this way is that you establish secured areas much quicker where you know you can safely manuever your specialists without reserving TUs for reaction fire.

 

-Oftentimes the hardest part in a mission is just getting out of the transport in one piece. Try to form your entire squad in a circular formation around the transport with enough TUs reserved for a snap or auto shot, within the first turn. That way you have much better odds of spotting any nearby threats when you're deploying.

 

Anyway, I don't think it's so much that you're doing anything wrong as it might be you just are still figuring out what might work out well. Just keep playing and don't worry too much about casualties. In fact, it's taking casualties that teach the most.

 

Also, don't be afraid to start over if you think you can do even better. Every time I start a new game, I do way way better than the game before in not just the battlescape but in the game in every aspect.

 

Also, I think no matter how good someone is, it's always the beginning of the game that you're going to take the most losses. Don't worry about it too much. Even losing your well developed soldiers don't worry about, because a rookie will eventually develop even further than they did. The game isn't over till you've lost. Remember that soldiers are merely pawns. Non of them are like other chess pieces, because they can be replaced.

 

Actually at the beginning of the game, I just cruise through it, losses and all. That way I can get through as quickly as possible. I rush through the missions and take casualties. I don't even bother with screening soldiers. I just treat them all as cannon fodder. Eventually you hit a point where they're survivability is good enough you can start worrying about them. But that has more to do with how far you are along in research and technology than anything else.

 

You may even try, on a different save slot, just playing it from the standpoint of your men being cannon fodder. Then see how far you get. You'll probably start moving through the game fast.

 

Also, last but not least, never let your engineers idle. Always have them produce. One of the best items to produce in mass quantities to sell is the motion scanner. It's profit per hour is really good. That will help you maximize profit in the shortest amount of time, which in turn will help you be able to support more scientists, which in turn will help you get better technology sooner.

 

When your technology gets good, your rookies start to even survive well. Like when they have power suits or flying suits they tend not to drop dead at the drop of a hat.

 

Also, don't try to have as many men attacking a target at once, but also a few men to watch their backs.

 

When you're faced with a few aliens at once, it's often better to concentrate on one at a time. Each dead alien is one less that can shoot back. Also the closer ones are the generally the ones you want to give the highest priority to since they're less likley to miss.

[iggy]

When I played UFO on superhuman I went on a terror site with just rifles and a couple(2) of laser rifles. On 1 civilian died, and that was the only casualty other than the aliens. Also, by the end of the first month, I had the firestorm(or avenger, can't remember which one) in the process of being researched.

[Psy Guy]

How in the hell can you get advance craft research going on at the end of month one? Even with skipping any and all weapon research you still have to research alloys, power source, navigations, ufo construction, E-115? (not sure). Not to mention actually getting an intact powersource. By this time i have laser rifles, laser pistols, laser weapons, and medi-kit (or alloy) research out of the way. (and laser research is fast compaired to the other more advanced reserch) (i wanted to replay to the main topic why i was here) Go streight for lasers till you finish L rifle research. Then research alloys and armor. After armor you'll need medi-kits. After that its up to you. For terror sites use the dead to your advantage (civs of course) If you see a dead civ look for other plasma marks. If you see a lot of wall damage you know the bugger was "sniping" but if its a clean kill expect the bugger to be closer. Also you can tell where the shot from by 1. seeing where the alien could of hit the civ at that location 2. damage to the area and if there are any other dead civs around. Also use common sence and look and avoid sertain areas. (aliens love streets and 7 elevens. Never go into a dark gas station unless you would like to be BBQ sectoid grub.)And for people with slow computers (or amigas) learn to guess the time it takes for an alien to move while in the "Hidden Movement" phase. Theses nothing better than knowing how many aliens there are after turn one of a terror mission (Without reloading ).

 

-PSY GUY-

(dead civs save lives :devil: )

[iggy]

Actually, I think it might have been UFO Constructin, Ach, I don't rememeber.

[NKF]

Hmm.

 

What about building a 200 strong research team and capturing your first UFO intact?

 

Just a thought.

 

200 researchers can give quite a good turn of research speed. Not sure how you'd fund everything though.

 

Three additional labs, 190 extra laboratory hands, four extra living quarters (three if you sack the engineers temporarily for the beds). At most, half a month preparation time while at most 50 researchers working on the power unit, UFO navigation and or elerium while waiting for the extra buildings to get built then for the staff to arrive?

 

If anything, you're going to need very deep pockets if you wish to attempt such an endeavour.

 

- NKF

[Asmodai]

I try to get armor first, so that my guys last longer, and i have to cry less when they die.

[STIM]

I have 100 reseachers. And they cost 3 million, JUST to upkeep them there. Yes yes I know about, doing the transfer trick, but I don't want to.

 

But having that many researchers IS good. Heck I could of researched advanced craft in my 2ND MONTH!. But I didn't as I want to train Psy Guys first. Never had a chance to train Psy guys before.

 

But I can't even think of having to upkeep 200+ researchers for +6million bucks. I'm just bearly getting by.