X-Com is in Financial Trouble

[crispy]

Okay, I'm having a little trouble with my finances. I had 3 bases.

Alpha was a complete base with 20 troopers, 35 scientists, and 10 engineers. It had 2 stores, 2 living areas, and other basics.

 

Beta and Delta each had 20 troopers, 1 interceptor, 1 skyranger, and stores. They were just a skeletal bases designed only to shoot down UFOs.

 

Now after a few months, even with every country giving me funding, I was only pulling down about 500,000 a month. I sold off a lot of alien stuff (mostly bodies) but it didn't give me very much. Granted, I was keeping a lot of the weapons, Elerium 115 and Alien Alloys to use in the future for battlesuits (that I'd never be able to afford to build anyway).

 

Does anyone have any hints on base management? I mean, there are slots for like 8 or 9 bases, but I can't afford even half that after 6 months. What was my accountant doing wrong?

[Spaceman42]

It's not the accountant; you're perhaps a bit too ambitious in your base-building. Wait until you've gotten a good reserve of cash before you build another base. Radar bases, sure - but full-blown, general-stores-living-quarters-and-soldiers bases are *expensive*...

[Rattler]

I usually start making laser pistols and then selling them. Can be made for 8000 and sold for 20,000. All in a good amount of time. Bad thing is if you stockpile them then sell them all in 1 go, if your doing that and aliens attack your base. Your gonna be forced to use Laser Pistols

 

 

 

Ya ma bad Thanks for point that out

[Fox]

I usually start making laser pistols and then selling them. Can be made for 8000 and sold for 2000. All in a good amount of time. Bad thing is if you stockpile them then sell them all in 1 go, if your doing that and aliens attack your base. Your gonna be forced to use Laser Pistols

 

I'm having a hard time understanding that last post... I think you mean make them for 2000, and sell for 8000?

 

Anywhoozle, finance troubles, eh? Here's what ye do:

 

Go lasers all the way for a while. Screw plasma. Sell All plasmas you get, (except 1 of each plasma pistol and rifle, and a clip for each, so you can research them. They will disappear soon). The plasmas will rake in cash. Also, Laser weapons take no ammo. You can use them forever. Laser Rifles in my opinion are the cream of the crop, they are so good. I love them.

 

Also, sell your Alloys and Power Sources and Navigation. You can ALWAYS get those, but what you can't always get is Elerium. NEVER SELL ELERIUM. It is not renewable. It doesn't even get you that much money. You may even consider dismantling some parts of your new bases. I know it sounds terrible, but if you are REALLY in the hole, it might be your only hope. Sorry I gotta go, that's why I rushed this a bit. Hope it helped!

[NKF]

Don't even bother keeping one sample. Just start the research projects first (you don't need to allocate any scientists to them just yet), then you can safely unload all the plasma rifles or plasma pistols.

 

Also, clear out those plasma weapons. No, seriously, clear them out. You don't need ten heavy plasma and five laser rifles per soldier. Keep only one weapon per soldier plus any specialty weapons you want to keep (like pistols for dual weilding or as secondary firearms for rocket launchers, etc). I usually just sell off all the plasma weapons and grab them in combat when I need more firepower.

 

Besides, heavy plasmas are terribly abundant. You won't ever need to manufacture one.

 

Keep only one UFO navigation and one or two power sources. It's not like you'll be able to build multiple hybrid ships at the same time, and in the time it takes to build the ship, you'll have collected more.

 

Your alien alloys should be converted into personal armour or fusion ball launchers (when you get them). The personal armour's useful for rookies, and won't clutter up your base stores when it's attacked. It's slow to build though, but it does steadily get rid of the alloys. Selling the armour will net more money than you would by selling off the same amount of raw alloys. The fusion ball launcher nets even more money than the craft laser cannon and can be built just a tiny bit faster.

 

But if it's still early in the game, churn out craft laser cannons. They sell for quite a lot more than it costs to build them, and they are also ridiculously fast to build. Laser pistols and motion scanners are good, but the laser cannon nets the best profit.

 

For base building, expand slowly. Building too many bases too quickly, particularly fully functional bases, can be very costly. Start with small radar posts. One or two small or large radars to start with. Then when money permits, add some stores and one hangar. Then upgrade a little more by adding some quarters and some soldiers or HWPs to defend the base from attacks. Also, remember that you only need one hyperwave decoder per base. Adding extra hyperwave decoders will just have the same effect as installing an additional large radar, but at very heavy cost. If you just want to boost the range, use the large radars. Only one decoder will offer the benefits of decoding a UFO's mission data. (I'll need to get back to you on the decoding range though)

 

I tend to save a lot of money by just not building any base defense modules. This is because the aliens, once one team of aliens have found it (you can have several teams of the same race target a base simultaneously), they are not going to stop attacking the base until the manage to insert their soldiers into your base. So, "Why delay the inevitable?", I often say to myself.

 

The only base defence module I'd recommend would be the psi shield, but only once you can afford one.

 

One other way to cut expenses is if you are using HWPs to help defend your base. Don't buy any ammo for them. You must have enough ammo if you want to load one on your transport ships, but the game, if there isn't enough ammo, gives you a free load of ammunition for every HWP defending the base if the base is attacked. This isn't saving very much money, but it's still a saving. It's beneficial for powerful HWPs like the fusion tank or the mildly powerful rocket tank. If the tank survives and there's any leftover ammunition, you get to keep it too.

 

Use craft plasma cannons. They very expensive to build, but once you've got one, they are by far the most economical weapon you can have. Even on interceptors they'll knock out everything but a battleship with no trouble.

 

If you like to use the stingray rockets, consider the laser cannon as an alternative. It's just as powerful but with shorter range. It does have infinite ammunition though. It's the poor man's craft plasma cannon, but hey, it works. Useful against most small ships.

 

For your interception bases (i.e., any base that's not your primary base) , you don't need too many interceptors. Just one or two should be enough. I find one to be superb and very economical, and if you space your bases out just right, you'll always have an interceptor on hand no matter where the UFO goes or how fast its moving. Play your cards right and your monthly salary will cover the lease with no trouble.

 

If you manufacture alien grenades -- consider buying high explosives as alternatives. They're more powerful and much cheaper in comparison ($1500 may seem pricey, but considering alien grenades need one elerium chip per grenade...). You'll need someone with over 40 strength to be able to throw one a decent range though.

 

Finally, I think the best advice I can give is to encourage some floaters or snakemen to build a base near your own. The constant flow of supply ships will end all your financial troubles. Then, as long as you can keep attacking the supply ship, you'll be rolling in so much money that you won't know what to do with it.

 

- NKF

[JellyfishGreen]

The quickest advice I could give is sack the soldiers and Skyranger from the interception bases. The Skyranger at the central base can reach any point on the globe, and could be used for all your missions. (You might miss the odd one due to refuelling time). All the interception bases need is maybe a few soldiers for defence and an HWP couldn't hurt. Build stores, radar, the interceptor hangar, and the living quarters for the base security patrol.

[Ki-tat Chung]

just make sure you manage ur money wisly at the start, you'll be a billion-air in no time.

 

you end up selling hundreds of heav plasmas per month you'll have the whole world fully armed in no time if the programmers allowed the stuff to be actually bought but thats beside the point. just trying to say that what NKF said is 100% true. keep what you need and sell everything else off except for raw materials and several ammo stocks/clips.

[The Demi-Godly One]

Never hire soldiers unless you absolutly have to, keep as little as you think is acceptable. Also I would suggest not making new bases unless you have a lot of money every month. About 1 base for every 20 million.

[NKF]

Heh, it's not the soldiers you need to worry about. It's your $41-per-hour scientists.

 

You generally use about 100 - 200 scientists at a time. That's $30,000 per scientist, per month. Very heavy cost there. If you know exactly what you want and how to get it, 50 scientists can keep the cost down to at least 1.5 million per month as opposed to 3 million for a 100 scientists.

 

Engineers can generally pay their own salaries if you keep them busy, and your soldiers -- well, your soldiers' paychecks are easily secured by capturing and selling a couple of heavy plasmas.

 

Of course, there is always the bug where the monthly paychecks are not handed out to units who are currently being shuttled between bases. Heh, a technicality in the company's policy. "Paychecks will NOT be handed out to technical staff members who are not on the premsis when the payment slips are distributed. Combat personnel will be excused if they are out on a field mission, but will be subject to the same policy if they are being transferred."

 

- NKF

[BreakMage]

Ewwwwwwwwwwww... An RPGMaker2000 Icon. I'd recognize Don Miguel's work anywhere...

 

Anyway, I just got through raiding 2 Terror Ships and 2 Battleships (I guess they were on an Infiltration Mission... Don't think it happened. ) And when I finished selling most of the Heavy Plasmas, extra corpses, Navigations, and Power Sources, well, I went from .5 million to 17.5 million, roughly. It provided a much needed cash flow...

 

Your best bet would be to wait for Battleships to land. Careful, because terror units usually come in these, and 2 or 3 of the Aliens usually have Blaster Launchers. I find it really cheesy (but effective) to clear the map while watching the lower hatch, then just bringing EVERYONE back and camping at the hatch. Repeatedly press NEXT TURN. Since all your guys have ALL their TU's, Reactions really doesn't matter at all. The Aliens die, and they do so quickly. Finished a Battleship in about 5 minutes without losing anyone.

 

On a side note, it seems that Grav Lifts are invincible... some stupid Snakemen decided to blow up ALL the surrounding tiles with a Blaster Launcher.. and I didn't have any Flying suits to complete the mission with... So, since I'm a newb still, I reloaded.

[The Demi-Godly One]

What are you talking about with the RPGmaker 2000 thing? What looks like Don Miguels work?

[BreakMage]

The little Monster icon he has is from a program called RPGMaker 2000, and the Russian/English Translator's name from Japanese is Don Miguel.

[The Demi-Godly One]

Sorry I should correct myself, I thought you were talking about something in the post. But now I realize you mean Crispy's icon.

(BTW I have RPGMaker 200, did you know that 2003 is out?)

[BreakMage]

Apology Accepted. Link me to 2k3!!! Sick of 2000... Never got anywhere with it. Better than 95. But yeah, his icon is from RM2k. How's the finance going, Crispy? Get any landed battleships yet?

[crispy]

Yes, with the unnecessary bases gone, my finances are clear, but Japan has signed a pact with the aliens. Got to clear that up soon.

 

As for RM2k, I live in Japan, so I have legal copies (although they're in Japanese) of both 2k and 2k3, including the extra handbooks. (This is off-topic, but for those who are wondering, we're talking about game-making program)

[darkvenom]

I blame GST, and any other intergallactic taxes that make it hard for large intergallactic companies that try to fight life threatin aliens to make a decent living.

[AcidBoot]

Engineers are pure gold!!!

 

In all seriousness, if you have 2 living quaters, 2 workshops, 14 soldiers, and 86 engineers (plus whatever else), and you get your engineers building laspistiols round the clock... The income from selling the laspistiols will way more than pay for everything on the list.

 

All my interception bases also get a big arse compliment of engineers. Why shouldn't the base make profit?

 

The laspistol is the best thing to make for money (possibly bar some late game items, by which time cash is irrelevant) The profit margin per item is low, but they are very quick to build. What would you rather... $100K once, or $5K 30-40 times?

 

After the first month my expenses far out weigh the income from the nations, until about July-August, when my funding begins to catch up. The engineer's laspistol antics make up the deficit and then some, and so everything I capture and sell is profit to be used for expansion and building "real" gear.

 

The other advantage of having a sick amount of Engineers is how quickly you can kit out your men with the latest gizmos. Just invented flying armour? No problem! All soldiers will have their very own set in just a couple of days.

[NKF]

Just comparing some of the items you can build early on.

 

You might want to try that stunt with the craft laser cannon. You can build one at exactly the same speed as the laser pistol, and it doesn't clutter up the stores when the base is attacked (mind you, nothing against the laser pistols. I'm quite fond of them). The craft cannons are also at a $29, 000 profit per cannon, whereas the laser pistol only has a $12, 000 profit per pistol. (when I mean profit, I mean on the earnings you get on top of how much you spent to build the item)

 

Only problem with the craft laser cannon is the initial overhead, since the cannons cost $211, 000 a pop where the laser pistols are $8000 per gun. So if you don't have much capital to start with, the laser pistols can get you up and running.

 

The motion sensors are also quite good and can be built even faster. For example, where 25 engineers can build a laser pistol or the craft cannon under 12hrs, the same group can build a scanner in 8hrs, but at only $11, 600 profit per scanner built.

 

Someone on this forum posted a good summary of how profitable the workshops are. Whoever it was, fess up.

 

- NKF

[The Demi-Godly One]

I think I've heard the most profitable item was the laser cannon or something like that.