Making money quickly

[Edoardo Pantenella]

Hello everybody,

 

I am an old fan of the X-com saga and I had finished the first 3 games a long ago. now I tripped in this forum, and it remembered to me how desperate physical dependence I had developed toward them.

So I bought AGAIN Apocalypse (having my original copy in some forgotten box - I found the new one on www.fcdsoft.com for free+$12 shipping to Europe, if someone is interested), installed it on a very old PC of mine with win 95 (no XP compatibility crap, please - wanna play NOW!) and restarted at superhuman.

 

so my first questions, as it has been 7 years since I played: I've read someone writing he had the biotrans the 2nd week, or the personal teleporter the 8th day. Is it possible under superhuman?

 

And how many raids can be done the first few days (I HATE Sirius, Psyke, Osiron)? I mean, agents end up being wounded sooner or later, isn't it? and you have not an unlimited supply of soldiers (during the first week, you can only have 10-11, I think). I mean to train the soldiers and get equipment. If not, other methods to quickly improve the rating?

 

and, above all: how to make money selling car parts? I have read something about this, but don't remember - when I was young I did not pay a lot of attention to the managerial part, but now I would really like to optimize my cash flows.

 

Thanks a lot and congratulations for the forum

 

Edoardo "the only Italian guy in X-com TFTD" Pantenella (If I remember well)

[NKF]

I wouldn't be suprised. The bio transport module is the first module you get to research! Or if you meant the Bio Trans (The X-Com flying van thingy - or possibly interdimensional flying hearse), then it would be quite difficult to achieve without a top notch scientist team and having shot down the Type-3 UFO the moment it appeared.

 

Alien technology is released depending on your score (it's even taken away if you do so bad that your score really starts to plummet). The game simply does a check against your score and releases new technology at the start of each new week. (I've mentioned this several times this week, all over the place... heh)

 

So yes, it would be possible for you to release alien tech up to the personal teleporter (i.e. the last item of technology in the research tree) within the first couple of weeks if you are really persistent and perform raids non-stop (stun raids if you don't have enough healthy agents to do a hostile raid). Researching all that technology on the other hand is another matter entirely!

 

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Selling car parts make use of buying pre-packaged items at their discounted rate and then selling the parts at full market value while the selling prices are still high. A Stormdog for example always comes with a few extras, like the Anti-Air Guard cannon, ammo, an engine and some fuel, so you get these at a discount in the full price for the car. If you sold a stormdog with extra accessories, or any vehicle for that matter, you'll be selling them at a discounted price as well.

 

The first thing you should do when you start a new game is to buy all the Stormdogs, and Wolfhounds (if you don't plan to use the APCs) and take them apart. Sell the vehicle bodies, engines and weapons and ammo. Always sell them in one go, and not in small quantities or else your selling price drops. During the first few sales, you should always get back more than you spent on them in the first place. I would however recommend hanging onto the AA guard cannon's ammo for a week or two. Just repeat the buy, remove, sell procedure for a few weeks, but hoard the ammo. Once you've built up a sizeable stack, sell it all off in one go. For future money-making prospects: I'd recommend doing this with alien tech as well. Pick a common weapon, like the devestator. Hoard it for a while. Say up to 100 or more cannons, then sell everything at full price.

 

Note that taking cars apart and selling the bits will not bring in heaps of money. If you wanted to make quick heaps of money, then you're better off harvesting psiclones.

 

The only real advantage (apart from getting extra cash out of nothing, of course) this offers is that it will give you some extra pocket change (which is quite a sizeable amount to start off with) and not touch your total score. This is great if you want to pace your technology release at the start (which is good) and get a bit of extra spending cash to buy a few extra grenades, hoverbikes, ammo and a few other knick knacks that you will be needing for the next week or so.

 

The main disadvantage of doing this is that you could possibly hit the vehicle purchase limit. This is only temporary, but can be very annoying. I would recommend that if you find a lot of Stormdogs appearing on the market for sale that you should buy any hovercars or hoverbikes that you need before going about your spare auto-parts dealership.

 

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I know the question was about money in the first week, but I thought I'd add this in anyway to round it off.

 

In the late game, making money is easy. The best way to make money is to forget raids and gather two or more large workshops and start cranking out and selling hybrid aircraft. There's no limit to how many ships you can build, so you can keep building and selling them continuously. The best part is that they will always sell for twice the amount you spent on them, so you're making a 100% profit (although which gives the best profit by time, I couldn't say). In the Bio Trans' case, it even comes with free cargo and bio transport modules that means the extras can bring in a bit of extra pocket money for you to spend.

 

- NKF

[Edoardo Pantenella]

It was a very professional answer, thanks. In fact I had tried this trick with flying vehicules, but since it did not work (i.e. no discounted price on hovercars, or very limited if any) I did not insist on road vehicules.

 

Technology: in fact I meant the inter-dimensional minivan, which I thought quite difficult to have at such an early stage. Thanks for confirming my feeling...normally I reached it FAR later than that!

 

Sorry to make you repeat things...In fact I had read the fact of the game triggering new techs on the basis of the score, but as for the teleport we speak about 50-70K points, I was wondering how to boost my points to such level in a few days, with marsec BB guns and cattle stun rods.

 

So...Let's raid.

 

Thanks and keep in touch,

 

EP