Alien Bases

[Stun Grenade]

I'm up to my first Alien Base and I'm totaly lost... should i wait for them to get me or should I go deeper inside.... I find that these green guys are hiding everywhere..

 

~SG

[NKF]

Look at it this way:

 

An alien base mission is almost identical to a battleship mission or a bse defence mission. The only real difference is the setting. You also get an additional but entirely optional winning condition, which is to destroy the command table and exit the base.

 

Going deeper and deeper is an idea if you've located the command centre and want to destroy it (and the commander) as quickly as you can, but don't let yourself get surrounded this way. A slower approach might be more useful - but watch out for the blaster bombs.

 

- NKF

[Stun Grenade]

thanks NKF.. but what are these green and bubble type aliens I see?

[NKF]

Green? There's only one alien race in UFO that wears green. Mutons. They're tough brutes. Not only do they appear to resist some types of attacks, they also have plenty of armour to boot. Not too great in the psionic department though.

 

They have two terror units that can get attached to their squads. Silacoids and celatids.

 

The melee unit ( the one that sets fire to the ground as it moves) is not much to worry about, though it is quite resilient. The other is easy to deal with, but it packs a plasma weapon that does some serious damage and can be fired over walls. I keep mixing up their names. I think the hot rock is the silacoid while the floating kidney is the celatid. They aren't all that grand by themselves, but they can be very deadly if you're not careful.

 

- NKF

[Stun Grenade]

oh god!! me doesn't want to play this mission...

[neil1]

Personally, I just use a load of blaster bombs to flaten the place and kill as many of them as possibe. Only problem is that if you leave your men in one place as a group and you do not manage to kill the aliens with the blasters, then they have a habit of finding you and flattening a lot of your guys.

[Zombie]

I like NKF's reaction to what alien Stun Grenade had on his alien base mission! The color green is a bad color in X-COM. Mutons are really purple in color, but their organically grafted armor is green. Just some useless information.

 

Silacoids are the rock-like, melee-based terrorists associated with Mutons. While scary looking, they are pretty weak. Everything but incendiary ammunition does normal damage. With only a hand-to-hand attack and 40 time units on beginner skill level, a rookie soldier can easily out-run one of these guys. Celatids are the pink, kidney bean-shaped, hovering terrorists. Be careful of these! With that powerful acid-spit it has, soldiers can drop like flies, even with armor. They also have 70 time units to use. Do not muck around with these blokes, kill them asap!

 

According to the Official Strategy Guide, Mutons take normal damage from everything except armor piercing ammo which does 60% of the rated damage. If you are going up against Mutons with normal pistols and rifles, good luck! These weapons have armor piercing bullets, so therefore they only will do an average of 60% damage.

 

Stun Grenade:

 

Here is what I would do: Abort, but only for the time being. Get all your guys back to the green area and dust-off. When you get back to base, re-equip the transport with all the high explosive ammo, grenades, and rockets that the craft can carry. Then go back. Minimally equip your troops with the grenades and heavy weapons and leave the rest sit on the floor. If you run out of ammo or grenades on a soldier, go back to the green room and get some more. This prevents your soldiers from getting over-encumbered by the heavy weapons.

 

An alien base is definately not a priority in my book. You can go back any time you want. It is true that every day an alien base is on earth results in a 5 point reduction in your score. But this deduction is offset by the other crash sites, landing sites and terror sites you visit. Heck, in my current campaign, I left a Muton alien base sit on the map for 3 months straight until my soldiers gained some experience, and I could equip my Skyranger with explosives and newly researched/manufactured laser weapons!

 

In your case, get back to the Muton base as soon as you feel you are ready. Do not wait too long. Eventually, you are going to have to fight Mutons anyway, so you might as well get some experience under your belt for later encounters with them. Successfully eradicating a base of Mutons is a right of passage. It puts hair on your chest and transforms soldiers into men!

[Stun Grenade]

ive found a new way...

 

i just played the mission again then with only one survivor left... i posistioned him above the transporters and all of a sudden the alliens came into view... they stood directly underneigh me... they shot.... the bullets rebounded and destroyed the whole room... 5 aliens dead on the floor... i had won....

[Bomb Bloke]

On the bright side, mutons have no real special abilities, other then the fact that they might take one (or even two!) more shots to kill.

 

Just a note for base missions, don't walk down the middle of corridors. Ok, I admit, I do it all the time, but apparently that's where the blaster bombs are supposed to go when the aliens use them.

 

Don't know what blaster bombs are? Well, think a rocket launcher, that can go around corners. Lots of corners. Line of sight is not required, of course. Oh, and it's explosive. Like, really, really explosive. Ya see, you wouldn't want to play against a human player on a base mission, as they could probably kill your ENTIRE SQUAD turn 1 with these babies.

 

I don't use them much myself. However, by the end of the game, I generally have a nice stock, and the aliens on Cydonia really have a hard time of it. Be warned, don't give them to psi-weak rookies, if they get controlled by aliens, well... Don't say you weren't told.

[Blehm 98]

the mutons often have 3 or even four bb soldiers(source is experience form a base mission i just won) you could always just sit in the grean room, and if there are lot of aliens in one place, bb it, and your problem is solved. just be careful, because if mutons are more than 6 or 7 squares from the center, the may survive

[Zombie]

Seriously, if anybody is an expert on Muton base assaults, it's me. (Not to toot my own horn or anything)! See, I intentionally left a Muton base on the map.

 

Now, I:

1) Send my troops to the base,

2) stun a Muton (with Stun Rods!),

3) haul the body somewhere safe,

4) revive the Muton with stimulant from Medi-kits,

5) kill the remaining Mutons,

6) shoot the power sources (if they are in the base) with Heavy Plasmas and recover the Elerium-115,

7) haul the corpses and weapons back to the green room,

8) have my soldiers throw the bodies and weapons around (this increases throwing accuracy),

9) Dust off, leaving the unarmed alien to "stew in his own juices".

 

Because there is one alien left alive, the base remains intact (unless you destroy the command center). As soon as my transport gets back to base and refuels/rearms, I send it back to the Muton base again.

 

This method is called the "smash and grab". By doing this, you increase your soldiers' stats as well as recover vital Elerium-115, corpses, weapons, clips and equipment from the aliens. By selling the excess weapons and bodies, you gain a healthy profit. In addition, your monthly score will increase dramatically, totally overwhelming the aliens score and leaving the governments very happy in the process.

 

The first month I implemented the "smash and grab" technique, my score was 28,848! The second month it was 38,423!!! This was done with only 2 Skyrangers. For this coming month, my first Avenger will be built, allowing me to to visit that base many more times. I wouldn't be surprised if my score was over 50,000 points. Once I sell off the Skyrangers and rely on Avengers exclusively for the base missions, my score could get to 80,000 or even higher!

 

What a score like 38,423 means is roughly 64 Muton base visits per month assuming an average score of 600 per mission. That's roughly 112 missions in two months!

 

In an average Muton base you may see anywhere from 0 to 4 Mutons carrying Blaster Launchers. That's right! I said 0 Blaster Launchers. Though atypical, no aliens carrying the Blaster Launcher is not that uncommon to see. The average (if I recall correctly) was 2 Blaster Launchers.

[NKF]

You mean, on top of the supply ship raids? Now that is what I call obsession. Not that there's anything wrong with it, mind.

 

What happens if you have casualties? I take it you must have a large enough cache of troops to draw from that replacements are no problem at all.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

You mean, on top of the supply ship raids? Now that is what I call obsession. Not that there's anything wrong with it, mind.

 

What happens if you have casualties? I take it you must have a large enough cache of troops to draw from that replacements are no problem at all.

 

- NKF

Yes, on top of the Supply Ship raids!

 

Actually the score of 38,423 takes into account all the UFO's I shot down and visited as well as research and those base raids. I estimated that my score without the Muton smash 'n grab would be around 3,680 which is about normal X-COM activity for May 1999. Therefore, the base raids contributed 34,742 extra points to the month! Try to beat that, you stupid aliens!

 

Obsession? Well, maybe a little bit I admit! Most of it is practical. I got this score on the PSX version which does not allow you to modify any files associated with the game, including soldiers. I was actually more interested in making my soldiers "the best that they could be". By visiting the base so often and killing many aliens you can increase your soldiers stats very fast.

 

To this point, my soldiers have killed a total of 2842 aliens for an average of 89 kills per soldier. They also have a collective 2632 missions under their belt for a total of 82 missions each. This averages to about 1 kill per mission per soldier. Not bad if I do say so myself. My commander has the most experience: 160 missions and 165 kills. Needless to say my "original" team of 14 soldiers all have maxed out stats except for Psi! I also have a couple of teams of 12 which are rapidly gaining experience.

 

Casualties? To be honest, I have had casualties but that is very rare. My original team has been retired to the main base while a couple of experienced soldiers stay on to train the new recruits. Every once and a while a rookie gets killed which is no problem. See, my kitty at the moment stands at $332,407,766! If I needed to, I could hire 16,620 soldiers!

 

You have to remember this: sodiers fight a lot better if their stats are maxed out. The aliens really never stand a chance with my guys. With their experience and my supervision plus Heavy Plasmas all around, nothing gets in my way. Even Ethereal missions seem quite tame when you know what a soldiers psi rating is. Too low, and the guy stays home. I have seen so many missions that I pretty much know what is happening every round. If you start to correctly anticipate an aliens movement and actions, you can win every game without ever having a casualty!

[Blehm 98]

... i thought nkf was obsessed. Now my view of him has changed. I've never seen anyone ...well *faints*

[Zombie]

*quickly splashes blehm with a bucket of water*

 

You Ok buddy? You hit your head pretty hard in the fall.

Or was that me? I can't remember.

 

Was NKF ever obsessed? He doesn't seem like the type. Maybe an enthusiast, but never obsessed.

 

You guys with the computer version have it made. If you want to know what it is like to play X-COM with a group of highly-trained commandos all you have to do is fire up your soldier editors and change some numbers around. For those of us with the PSX version we are helpless to know. Our only recourse is to play tons of missions to find out. The only good side-effect to playing lots of missions is you really gain plenty of experience and can formulate new strategies on the go. I love playing X-COM with juiced-up soldiers. It a barrel of fun!

[Bomb Bloke]

We call him NKF-Sensei, because whatever the X-Com related question, he knows the answer...

 

But we're going to need a new call-sign for Zombie.

 

And yes, I am still making that logging program, by the way...

 

Those are high scores. I've never gone over, um, five thousandish, I think. I average three thousand points, just like everyone else...

 

But how much money can you get? There must be a point where the value overflows back to the negatives, or zero.

[NKF]

Research by Repetiton Guru?

 

Bomb-Bloke, if I'm not mistaken, cash is stored in 4 bytes. Assuming it's signed, you'd get something like $2,147,483, 647, and then go all the way down to $-2,147,483,646 by adding an extra dollar.

 

---

 

Well, I guess you could call me obsessed in that I go a bit beyond the casual gamer when it comes to trying to work some things out. Like when I was trying to figure out how the damage formula worked. I don't even remember how many saves and reloads I had to do until I got a pretty clear idea of how damage was calculated. Only to later realise I'd completely forgotten a couple of factors, like the damage modifiers. Had to go testing it again.

 

That and a whole bunch of things I just 'happen' to know about. Like the how reaction is adjusted depending on the percentage of your remaining TUs. This was done entirely through observation and excessive mind probes!

 

And all with the help of a scientific calculator (with an n-based mode), a pencil and a ream of used typing paper.

 

But true, I'm not so obsessed that I play the game 24/7 just to work everythingo out. In fact, I can't truly say I've actually properly played the games in years. Just the occasional mission, and when I want to work something out.

 

- NKF

[Stun Grenade]

Zombie -(DOMIN)ation!!

 

my plan just keeps working, 10 snakemen destroyed in one shot (friendly fire on the aliens account too!!)

 

such is life!!!

[Zombie]

You guys are too funny!

 

Anyhow, I always wondered what "sensei" meant and why people used it in conjunction with NKF. For those of you who do not know, "sensei" means:

1) A judo or karate teacher. (I doubt NKF teaches Karate)

2) A teacher or mentor. (Now that's more like it!)

 

Seems like a fitting name to me!

 

Bomb Bloke:

I knew NKF would handle the question of what the maximum cash is. I could of found out but it would have taken me much longer! That value sounds good for the computer version. I'll have to check what the limit is for the playstation sometime. It's possible the Playstation handles numbers differently.

 

Speaking of high points, the maximum score I ever saw advertised was roughly 22,000. So 28,848 and 38,423 totally eclipse that number. I'm thinking nobody will ever try to purposefully beat my score. Why? It's a ton of work! I can't wait till I get that Avenger built. My troops could visit that base 3 times more than with a Skyranger! That should really put a damper on the aliens score!

[Stun Grenade]

So is NKF the official "teacher" at the boards here? I think he needs to have more to his name such as a Guru!

[Bomb Bloke]

No, Sensei is good. Sometimes it's "Uncle NKF", but usually Sensei.

 

I couldn't handle the 180 or so missions per month you plan on, Zombie. I doubt anyone's going to beat your scores.

 

Maybe we should call him 'Commander' Zombie.

[Zombie]

I couldn't handle the 180 or so missions per month you plan on, Zombie. I doubt anyone's going to beat your scores.

[Bomb Bloke]

I doubt I run many more missions then a hundred in an entire campaign.

[Stun Grenade]

to be honest i hate doing missions, i like researching and building and then once i have researched manufactured equipment, then i might like to kick some alien can!

[Zombie]

I did some calculations last night on how many points a person could get in a month. Realistically speaking, a sane person would only be able to place about 2 X-COM bases near an alien base. This is because you still need the other bases for radar coverage over the rest of the world.

 

Now assuming one Avenger can make a round trip to the alien base in 10 minutes, and an average of 43,830 minutes per month, you would be looking at 4383 missions per month. Multiply that by 600 points per mission and we are looking at 2,629,800 points per Avenger crew. Since there are 4 Avengers (with soldiers) doing missions at any time, you multiply by 4.

 

This gives a result of 10,519,200 points in a month. That's 17,532 missions, or almost 100 times more than the 180 missions per month you guys are complaining about! I have a long way to go before I can ever reach that many missions and still maintain an active social life!

 

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