Huge late game trouble...

[TabulaRasa]

I think i need a bit of advice. Im currently very late in a game, on superhuman difficulty. I've researched every type of alien i can get exept for live micronoid aggerate, and ive got everything in the physics department... exept for ufo type 5... As it turns out from another site, i need this from the next type of dimensional craft. Right now the aliens are using motherships, battleships, and bombers along with escort ships to constantly bombard the city into the ground, pushing my rating lower and lower each week. I amcurrently at 30k a week for income, but i get any money i need by selling things like personal cloaking devices. I cant imagine how to get a destroyer to come out short of buying massive ammounts of vehicles and taking out every ufo that comes through the gates, and incurring massive losses and losing more money. I normally use hovercars armed with lineage plasma cannons but elerium can often be in short supply. Each week i can normally manage to take down a mothership or battleship, sometimes one of each and often a few bombers but i need some strategy for getting just one destroyer down. I dont want to have to be using bio transports for all of the alien dimension missions.......

[NKF]

That's a bit unusual, but it's not something that cannot be fixed. The best way to go about it is to whittle down the UFOs as much as you can. By now, the aliens will continuously regenerate two capital ships and either three probes or a bomber and an escort every week.

 

How are you when it comes to disrupter shields and medium disrupters? If you're fighting the capital ships, you should have access to these by now. Arm Hawk Air Warriors with shields and the medium disrupters and obliterate as many UFOs as you can. You'll have to deal with the battleship and mothership almost every week, but if you can destroy as many ships as you can, they'll eventually send their remaining destroyers (if any) through.

 

Note, you can save after every incursion and run the game for a few days. If you don't get any incursions, reload and run through the next few days again and again. This way you can force the game to initiate an alien incursion without having to hit the end of the week all that often. It might be cheating, but if you're desparate (and your ships can handle it), this is a good way to cut down the alien forces faster than they can regenerate.

 

For a worst-case-scenario, it is possible to beat the game with only a Bio Trans. You just need to immediately head towards the right side of the map to get into the safe zone, recharge then move along the edge of the map until you get to the next alien building. Wait for a gap to appear (use the overhead map to observe UFO movement), and zip into the building. Destroy it, head to the edge of the map, and inch your way back to the gates and jump in at the nearest opportunity. By the time you've destroyed the Control Centre, the aliens will no longer be able to regenerate UFOs, so you can safely take out whatever they've got left in the city and not worry about the aliens attacking Mega Primus ever again.

 

But let's hope you don't get to that point, eh?

 

- NKF

[TabulaRasa]

LOL! I just got the message at the end of the week that went something along the lines of:

"The senate considers the performance of X-COM to be so abysmal that it has decided to cease funding." I didnt know you could keep playing after that happened

[Kret]

As long as you don't go bankcrupt you can keep on

[NKF]

Normally if your performance is so bad over a consecutive number of weeks, the government will shut you down completely.

 

You can actually do so well that the government will have a hard time keeping up payment to the point they have to cut funding somewhat.

 

- NKF

[Kret]

True. I experienced the 2nd on basically all the games I've played. I wonder why they never programmed it so the funding given to X-Com (the player) could never go above the current income of the Senate or a fraction thereof, but now I'm derailing from the main subject.

[Pherdnut]

Maybe a little late for this one but what the heck. Hovercars with guns is suicide after week 3, IMO. Sounds like you took too many vehicle losses. I'm an anal player and rarely lose a ship (typically reload if I do). To really hit the aliens, it's best to save your game every day after your vehicles have rearmed and repaired from the last encounter. When you see the UFOs show up at a certain time, reload and park all your vehicles (not too close or they'll get shot at while they're taking off) near the gates before the UFOs how up. This might seem lame but it's really just shortcut from going through the hassle of pausing the game every hour or two and moving all your craft to wherever the gates have moved.

 

Cars and bikes should be set to evasive and only use missiles after week 2 when the fast attack ships show up. Prophets are ideal since they have a longer range than janitors. Once missile equipped UFOs show up, either trade up to air warriors exclusively or equip those cars and bikes with long range justice missiles and fire from really far away. Everything bigger than a car should stick with guns since they can't really evade well enough to be worth using the less damaging missiles. The best guns available will always do more damage than missiles. In week 1, all my ships use lasers exclusively. It really makes a difference in how fast the scouts and probes get shot down and you get a nice early boost from selling all those janitor missiles they give you.

 

I strive to shoot down every single UFO I can in my games and even without reloading I frequently bag all the ships in week 1. The lasers are very effective in the first week and much more cost effective.

 

If Air Warriors are available, ditch any valkyrie's you have. AWs only cost a little bit more and are 5 times the machine.

 

And remember, this isn't a roleplaying game. Restarting and trying something new is half the fun.

[Mouse Nightshirt]

But some people want to play the game more "realistically". Typically, I reload if I suffer obscene losses, but I haven played a few no reload games (sooo... temptinnngggg....), and it completely changes your playstyle. More cautious, greater use of tactics.

 

Plus, if you miss UFO 5, the Destroyer, either get a save game editor or follow NKFs advice to finish the game, because I guarantee you one wont come through that dimension gate. Well, its a lame guarantee, but I've NEVER had one come through late game.

[Pherdnut]

Agreed on that. I'm just saying reloading for the sake of not having to spend every hour moving your fleet from parking spot to parking spot isn't really as lamer as reloading every time you take a loss.

[NKF]

I don't bother with saving and reloading. Not because I want realism. I'm just a lazy bugger.

 

I send a token squad of ships to various sectors in the city. This generally consists of one Hawk and 4 hoverbikes - in the early game. Later on I don't even bother - as I'd have blown all UFOs in the AD to smithereens with my Explorers. The hawk and hoverbike fleets are usually strong enough to take on a single UFO - if not, multiple squads converge on the same location. They make a tactical retreat if the UFOs manage to link up with the FAS.

 

In the city, my approach is to just shoot down UFOs that I need to research and leave most of the UFOs alone unless they're on their own or are nice big juicy targets like the capital ships. Once I have interdimensional ships that can mount medium disrupters, it's all over for the UFOs.

 

- NKF