Elerium-115

[Asmodai]

I need more Elerium! I made power armor for all of my guys, and now I'm out! Does anybody have any good ways to get Elerium?

 

WITHOUT modifying the game in any way!

[InsaneLapin]

let ufos go to the ground then attack

[NKF]

Try and also get the snakemen or floaters to build a base near your primary base. Just leave the floater or snakemen ships on 'alien base' missions alone. Eventually they'll send a battleship in, which will build the base.

 

Or if you see a snakeman or floater base that's already built, build a base very close to it, and arm the base with a skyranger, at least one stores module (you only need one. Your soldiers are smart enough to cram enormous amounts of stuff into it), a recovery crew and some weapons, then you're all set.

 

The aliens will send in a supply ship on a fairly regular basis, which you can nab intact every time. There are three power units I think, so that makes 150 units of elerium per supply ship.

 

- NKF

[Crazy Photon]

Besides, that will also solve a lot of problems, such as:

 

- Solves alien alloys shortage.

- Gives lots of weaponry, like heavy plasma, etc... which can be converted to cash.

- Serves as a training ground for rookies.

 

EDIT: Oh, I forgot... you may want to build the base before they do, it has happened to me that they built a base and then when I want to build mine they destroy it before the general stores are built... They'll probably build the base not as near as you want it, but at least you can usually reach it

[NKF]

Not sure about them destroying the base. The aliens usually just home in on the closest base to where their ships were previously shot down, so it could have been initiated from a nearby interception. But whatever the cause...

 

The supply ships will provide a good flow of X-Com activity points. This'll keep all the surrounding countries very happy. Not to mention offsetting the alien activity score generated by the base in that area.

 

- NKF

[mirage]

I like Dr. Pepper so much I call it Elerium 115

 

the supply ship stratigey works well they have tons of it.. if you get REALLy lucky (it's only happened to me once) you might get a landed terror ship.. with no terror mission

[Crazy Photon]

Yes, assaulting terror ships is VERY rare... IIRC in my entire X-COM life I think I've assaulted 3 or 4 terror ships, 3 of them in Infiltration missions and 1 in Alien Research mission

[darkvenom]

At some certain point in the game you will notice if you play the more intermediate levels that some races stop their investigation and infiltration, however, mutons/etherals and sectoids are constant... i got to a point where there was 2 sectoid bases and 2 Etheral bases around and 1 Muton... Snakemen would only appear during a terror mission and floaters just disappeared... so it became harder and harder to get Ellerium...

 

So i just gained Ellerium from downing Muton Battleships which i think is around 200 elerium.. i think?

 

But anyway i didn't really care much because i only had 2 avengers which dont cost a thing for maintenance, but are heavy on the Ellerium, as i used them as interceptors as well... so becareful not to scare off the snakemen ok!

 

[Fox]

Arm an interceptor, or even better a Lightning, with one stingray launcher. When medium-large scouts come around, use that to shoot them down. Usually you need 4 or all 6 missiles to down it, but usually it doesn't damage the UFOs enough to destroy the power units inside, and leaves your little purple friend on the power source intact as well.

[manuele]

So i do it this way, wait for a UFO that lands nearby, don't shoot it down!!!

then fly to the landing place and beginn the mission, while the mission, don't shoot on the energy source of the alien-ship, otherwise you won't get elerium, do it a few times, and you'll have enough elerium, plasma guns and much more. This way you have a bit more aliens to kill, but this is not a problem

[Mouse Nightshirt]

If you don't mind cheating a wee bit, this bit of knowledge will come in handy.

 

The Destruction of the Power Source(s) have a large random element for them.

 

Doing lots of extra damage decreases the chance of it being intact, but, if you want to make sure you get intact UFOs, save it before you land, and reload if it isn't a desirable UFO. It may take time to find the UFOs tell-tale signatures of having a blown power source, but when it concerns 200 Elerium, does it really matter?

 

NKF, that's another equasion for you to work out

[NKF]

It's one of the number of things I cannot work out, since there aren't any numbers to work with that I can see.

 

All I know is that only shot-down ships get damaged, and the level of damage to the ship in the battlescape appears to be random. Although, the number of dead aliens at the beginning might be of some help, but that could be random as well.

 

Something else that I'd like to work out along a similar vein is whether the number of aliens deployed in base attack is directly affected by how much damage you deal to the battleship before it gets through. Probably not, but it would be nice if it did.

 

About elerium, one other place you can get them is in alien bases. The 20x20 base module with a single corridor in the central large structure that leads up to four storage rooms has two power units in one of the rooms. Only one unit has an elerium pod plugged into it though. So for every instance of this area, you'll get one (x50) elerium pod. If you can somehow destroy the power unit without destroying the elerium, you could pick up the elerium pod and perform a quick evacuation, then perfrom the raid again and again, in between supply ships. You'll end up having more elerium than you can spend in no time.

 

- NKF

[darkvenom]

The only thing i have noticed about gunning downing and recovering factors in terms of how many aliens and whether or not the ships intact is this, and it might sound strange but it makes sense...

 

When you use overkill tacs on small ships, ie Double Plasma Beams or Fusion Balls, then the ships power source will most definetly be destroyed...

If, however, you use more conventional methods of one plasma and a weaker weapon such as a laser or stingray weapon then you will most prob recover a power source...

 

Most of the time when i played recovery missions, if i gunned down the ship in a night time assault the UFO would be a disaster, sometimes when recovering a meduim scout id setup my troops and then press the refresh button and the mission would be over in a single turn...

 

The most funniest recovery would have been a supply ship that was totally wrecked, the floor of the second level was entirely destroyed and half the alien crew was dead or ko'd from the smoke... i was chasing unarmed floaters all over the damn place cauz they just woke up!

 

The one thing i still dont get is that in one mission with a meduim scout (snakeman) the entireships was gone and the was only one chair (navigation) amongst all the smoke and one snakeman solider alive...

The stats at the end of the mission still said i recovered 2 Navigation???

 

Please explain! :dontgetit:

[Fox]

NKF - I don't know about that continuously raiding a base deal with elerium. If I remember correctly, it is like -500 points for "failure to destroy command center" or something. I've made mistakes before, though.

[Mouse Nightshirt]

Dark Venom: I believe the random element has a much huger part to play in whether the power source is blown. Higher damage does increase the chance, but I've had many an intact Medium UFO after downing it with dual Plasma Cannons.

 

NKF: How about equipping ships with single differing weapons to see how damage is related to chance?

[NKF]

Fox - You aren't penalised for not destroying the command centre and retreating. All you get is 'alien base is still intact' and any points from any aliens you killed and any equipment you've 'stolen'. You can pretty much raid the base as much as you want, get a bit of combat training and then dust off and let their cloning vats replenish their troops, and their interior decorators redecorate the base for your next confrontation.

 

In TFTD, for Artefact Sites, yes. You lose points for not destroying the synonium device, since the site is only temporary. I know you don't get penalised for not completing the first half of a colony, since I like to raid it to gather an early sample or two of the disrupter pulse launchers, not sure about the second half.

 

But if you want to raid the bases for the alien fuel, you're going to have to find out a way to extract it from the power units without destroying it. I'd prefer to just gather them from the supply ships that drop by. 150 Elerium per supply ship is plenty for my needs, since I only ever have two or three hybrid ships in employment, and plasma cannons are practically self sufficient.

 

Mouse - The next time I get a chance to, I'll try that. Been thinking about it, but I haven't had a chance to get round to giving it a shot (SS2 and JA2 being the culprits). Was also going to have a look and see if the number of engineers in your base influences the repair times. I had two avengers with almost equal damages from a rather nasty air battle with a battleship. The one in the base with the workshops seemed to get repaired a bit faster. I only noticed this once before, so it's probably just the random number generator at work again.

 

- NKF

[Psy Guy]

If you want a lot of E-115 just find a muton base and build a base (or if you already have a base close by) and set up a skyranger and crew of psi specialist. Wait till a supply ship lands and attack the ship and use your psi powers to own any and all mutons that stand in your way.

 

(damaging ships) I really don't think over killing a UFO matters much when it comes to the % chance of an intact power source. Actually using double plasma tends to keep the power source more intact then when i use a cannon on it. Actually using low power weapions with high firing rates like the cannon tends to rip up the walls of smaller UFOs while high damage weapions like the plasma cannon only knock out of the sky. (this is only an observation) Also i beleaved i read in the strad guide that downing a UFO causes a 70% chance of blowing the power.

 

-PSY GUY-

(kinda off topic but can you recover a craft where all the aliens are dead on the PC version. It only happened on the amiga version on the artic tile set)

[Slythe]

kinda off topic but can you recover a craft where all the aliens are dead on the PC version

 

I'm sure others have seen this happen too but recently on a recovery mission, as I first enter the soldier arming screen, there's a dead alien on the ground along with my gear, as if my Skyranger landed on the fool.

[Fox]

Psy Guy

 

Yes you can recover UFOs in which all aliens die. Happens on medium scouts only I believe. Message just pops up and says "All occupants die in crash, auto-recovery initiated" or something like that.

 

I suppose it could happen to large scouts that get jacked with fusion balls.

[NKF]

Updates:

 

Re: UFO damage based on damage dealt by craft weapon

 

I compared two ufos, both medium scouts. One was shot down with plasma cannons, and the other with one cannon, then kept launching missions to the same ufos over and over again to see what sort of damages each ship sustained.

 

Both ships had varying damages ranging from completely intact (!) to untouched hull with everything inside blown up, to the same thing but with one hole in the roof, to one with an even bigger hole, and other forms in between until the whole ship was obliterated with the exception of a few walls. These results were the same for both ships.

 

Apparently randomness is the deciding factor.

 

 

Oh, and re: getting elerium from alien bases:

 

I stand corrected. Power units don't blow up when shot. I wonder what gave me the idea they blew up when shot? I probably did it with HE shells, what a dumbkoff...

 

I just ran through a supply ship, blowing up the power units and gathering the elerium (actually, I was pretending to gather the elerium -- the elerium pods were there), then ran back to the lightning and dusted off. Should be able to do this with no trouble in the alien bases.

 

Oh, and power units are immune to laser pistols, so you're going to have to use something stronger than that.

 

- NKF