Intro thread: Cius

[Cius]

Hey all

 

Just thought I'd post a not so short intro. Name is Cius from Johannesburg South Africa. Long time strategy game player with UFO being one of my origonal and favourite games. Keeps pulling me back every 1-2 years for a spin. Other games I enjoy (or did) are Civ series, Rome Total War, Diablo series, Warcraft series, Broodwars, Master of Orion 2, Starcon 2, and some others I have probably forgotten. I am married with one child and working while studying my masters in Industrial Eng part time.

 

Thanks for an awesome site and especially to those reponsible for the awesome wiki. I think over the past few days I have read almost every page on the ufopedia for enemy unknown at least twice.

 

I discovered that while I have beaten the game repeatedly on beginner I was missing out on many aspects of the game. For instance I have never used PSI. I did not even ever do PSI screening. I suppose it happened naturaly in that I killed mind controlled soldiers occasionally but I do remember having to save and retry the Cydonia missions a few times due to mass mind control/panic of my soldiers. I sometimes recall getting Psi labs built but by then I was normally ready to leave for Cydonia already so I never got more than a months training in. I also almost never used reaction shots using up almost all my time units each turn. What a way to play in retrospect.

 

Anyways, again, thanks for a cool site. I found it while googling a way to stop Alien infiltration as two games in a row I had aliens infiltrate the USA within 4 months or so. Why pick that country first! Made me a bit dispondant and restart both times. Is the final answer in the wiki still relevant that there is no way to stop an infiltration? Now that I have learned about manufacturing laser cannons it matters less to me but still.

 

The way I play:

First base (Central) is always in Turkey/Eastern Europe

Second (Zarahemla) is in Central America

Third (Oz) is in the Phillipines. Normally all 3 are up and sending out recovery missions within 8 months or so.

After that I sometimes make radar/intercept bases at the poles, on Hawaai, etc but that would be late game.

I have never used grenades or HWP's.

Early game I primarly use laser pistols and laser rifles

All soldiers generally carry a medi-kit and at least Personal Armour once available

I storm the UFO ASAP, never camped out outside before.

I like to research everything and do it in order, this is changing now

I love avengers. I never build firestorms or lightnings. Just Avengers.

I hate battleships due to them damaging my avengers!

I never use aimed shots and mostly use auto shots

The only weapons I use for Cydonia are:

Lazer rifles and pistols

Heavy plasma's

Some blaster launchers

Medi kits

All Flying suits

 

Things that I have learned in the past few days that I am now trying or keen to try:

- Never knew that navigators opened up hyper wave decoders. I always used to research all tech first, then soldiers I had and then move on to navigators so I used to get the decoder very late. In my current game I am building them very early in the game

- Never knew about profitable manufacturing. Doing it now with laser cannons

- Never knew how Psi or even Psi screening worked. This will change the game for me. I can't even express how much I hated mind control and now I want a chance to abuse it :-D

- Never knew about the accuracy penalty for firing a two handed weapon one handed.

- Never knew how reaction shots worked. Making it work for me now. Gonna try reaction training with laser pistols once I have mind control sorted.

- Never knew the tricks around elevation and mind control for Crysalids. Man I hate those things converting my guys! Great to know that I can recover them.

- Never realised how cool it is to clear obstacles and buildings with rocket launchers. Starting to use that a lot now.

- Never knew how useful grenades could be or about grenade relays. Perhaps I'll actually stop selling every alien grenade I get now

- Never knew about terror missions and the 1000 point penalty (or even how points effected funding). Great help there even if you just land and ditch.

 

- And much more that I am probably forgetting now. Anyways see you around the forums. Just to repeat my question:

Can you stop infiltration at all or only delay it by shooting down the scout? Do they always target the USA first?

- Second Q: What is the earliest you can research the PSI tree and how do you do it?

[Bomb Bloke]

In order to unlock psionic powers, you must interrogate either a Sectoid Leader/Commander, or an Ethereal of any rank.

 

Back in the day I used to manufacture Alloys for cash - at a loss, as it turns out...

[Zombie]

Welcome to the forums, Cius!

 

Just to repeat my question:

Can you stop infiltration at all or only delay it by shooting down the scout? Do they always target the USA first?

- Second Q: What is the earliest you can research the PSI tree and how do you do it?

I've had limited success at stopping infiltration missions. Sometimes I'm able to stop it by shooting everything down (need multiple Avengers equipped with dual Plasmas in the target area in a base with a Hyperwave Decoder to make sure you catch everything). But most of the time the aliens succeed.

 

No, the aliens don't target USA first, it's just the luck of the draw so to speak. Aliens tend to carry out missions at the opposite part of the globe from your first base so if you are in Europe first then it's not surprising the aliens are testing the waters by picking on the US. Build your first base in the US. That way the aliens will concentrate their efforts in Europe. If you lose a country there, it's not such a big hit.

 

As for the PSI tree, if you are lucky and manage to nab a Sectoid Leader from the obligatory Terror Mission at the end of the first month, then you are about 3-4 months away from using psi. Any Alien --> Alien Origins --> Sectoid Leader should unlock the Psionic line. Then you'll need to build a Psi Lab and stick some troops in there for a full month of training. It's a long uphill climb to get psi abilities, but once your troops get good in this area it's game-over for the aliens.

 

- Zombie

[Cius]

Thanks for the responses guys.

 

Well, my first terror mission is long over and I think it may have been a floater one but I can't remember now. Did another one last night for the end of April and it was snakeman so no luck either. Still, I am a week or two away from hyperwave decoders in all my bases so after that I can target any large sectoid UFO and hopefully get going on the PSI tree.

 

Interestingly last night just before I wanted to shut down I had a battleship attack my main base. Its the first time I have seen a base attack that early in the game (Start of May). I guess its the difficulty level. Think I am playing Veteran this time rather than beginner. I had started to re-organsie my base along defensibility lines with 3 hangers along the top and only the access lift connecting them to the rest of my base. Unfortunately I still had one of the origonal hangers in the bottom Left corner as I did not expect an attack so soon and did not feel like paying the dirt maintenace fee. I saved the mission and will see how it goes later.

 

I also seem to recall that I once managed to stop an infiltration mission by shooting down everything. I seriously damaged 3 avengers in the process but it worked. That was why I was surprised when the wiki said its impossible to stop it??? Anyways, I may just try to test it further using save games etc. I know you are the king of that Zombie after reading the thread where you tested spawn points for base defense etc so I thought I might also give it a whirl.

[NKF]

I'm guessing that the game does toss a coin to decide whether the infiltration succeeds or otherwise, but that's not something you can easily influence by destroying the infiltration fleet. Like the alien base construction fleet, the infiltration fleet is more ceremonious in function than the actual 'infiltration' event itself. They do inflict a fair amount of activity points on the area though, and that can be a bit of camel back-breaker.

 

By the way:

 

Grenades:

 

Just tooting my own horn here, but if you haven't, please have a read of the Understanding Grenades article on the wiki for a little in-depth idea of how the silly things work.

 

Mainly want you to have a quick look at the experience attribution bit towards the end of the article. Just a good thing to keep in mind when you start using High Explosives. The double weight does make a lot of players use them as planted explosives rather than as thrown explosives. Not that you can't still do it this way, you just have to throw it at least once before the time you need to use it.

 

 

Reaction training:

 

You can train reactions naturally prior to Psi by generally sieging UFOs. Floater and particularly Snakemen are good aliens to train against. Snakemen are very good due to their low max TUs (which mean faster reaction level deterioration).

 

Though sieges can be done on any ship, Large Scouts and Supply ships make for excellent ships to set up a siege. Just scatter your troops at all sorts of ranges (within sight of the doorstep) in any way you want and load up something with a fast snapshot. Pistols, laser pistols, laser rifles are all good options.

 

If you want to be absolutely sure the enemy goes down on the first shot, go no further than the heavy plasma. The good news though is that the game has a reaction fire queue for all soldiers that meet the opportunity attack requirement. This means if so many troops are queued up to react during that turn but they are interrupted because one soldier high up in the queue killed the alien, they'll still get credited for reacting.

 

One good tip is to remember that the further away you are from the door, the less likely you'll attract return fire from those inside and the further the alien will have to walk in order to reach you. So scatter as far and as wide as you can. Remember that you have a 20-tile visual range.

 

One suggestion that sounds reasonable but one I haven't used much is to use a smoke grenade at the base of the door. This way the aliens will be forced to travel further to get spotted by you and your team waiting in ambush won't get spotted by those inside so easily. However as my sieges can easily take anywhere between 40 - 80 turns, it's quite a situational dependent strategy.

 

Later on, MC helps immensely as you can arm Mutons with basic pistols and have a reaction fire slug slinging match with basic pistols anywhere you want. Much fun, much fun.

 

- NKF

[Cius]

Thanks NKF. I read the grenades article twice but now need to experiment again. I had a bad experience once where I had a primed grenade on a soldier go off when he was killed in the middle of many other soldiers. That is why I stopped using them after what was probably my first attempt. Now that I

A - Spread my men out more

B - Understand grenade relay so you can keep the armer near the back where its safe

 

I am keen to try it again. Rounding the bend just before the bridge on supply ships for instance I almost always loose guys. Tossing a grenade around the corner is brilliant! That is what I will try next.

 

And noted on the throwing experience for grenades. Also the training using pistols and mutons is one of the main reasons I want to learn MC. Reaction and accuracy training must go through the roof with that trick! I remember just shaking my head and thinking brilliant when I read about it. Actually purposely using a pistol for something like that is brilliant. I normally sell pistols ASAP due to their low damage!

 

Next question:

It seems that most people advocate not letting the spotter shoot the alien to avoid reactions fire. My problem is that my spotters often get taken out by the snipers who shoot really badly in the early game. This happened to me twice in last nights terror mission. A soldier advances and sees a snakeman. I choose the soldiers who have the least chance of hitting that soldier who are further back and start auto shots towards the snakeman. It takes me too my 3rd sniper to deal enough damage but the last soldier shoots a wayward shot that hits my spotter in the back killing him. This happens to me all the time in the early game before shooting accuracy has increased. Any advice?

 

What I started trying was moving in smaller teams and keeping the two soldiers much closer together so that wayward shots would have to be way way off to actually hit the spotter. For instance if there is a 10 tile space between the two then you may hit him with a slightly off target shot. If the one is only a step ahead then your shot needs to be 45 degrees off to hit him. Problem with those small teams using laser rifles is if you run into a crysalid you may not have enought firepower to take it down before it gets all your guys.

[Knan]

The spotter-sniper team is probably the only time you'll want to use aimed, if angles are tight. Aimed, snap or a grenade from over the hedge make sense in these situations. A 40 strength grenadier is worth his weight in gold, even if his throwing accuracy is bad.

 

Auto is ... troublesome in crowded situations, especially early-game. As you've already noticed. More so if you are using HE ammo.

 

Having the frontmost scout walk around with a pre-armed grenade and a pistol is a fine strategy, I think. He should be far enough away from the others not to take them with him, and may avenge his own death postmortem if he's shot at point-blank turning a corner.

[Bomb Bloke]

Having a spotter/sniper team is more efficient (in that you've got way more TUs to blast things with), but there's another way: When the spotter sees an alien, have him take a single step back the way he came. The alien can no longer see him, so he himself can fire without fear of return shots (or of hitting comrades).

 

Of course, this limits how far you can move per turn (as you need to keep more TUs in reserve for your spotter), but you should be reserving TUs anyway. The main issue is at night, where the aliens can see far further then you can - but if you're running across an open field at night, you'll probably get your spotter killed before you ever obtain a visual on the target, so it's a moot point.

[Zombie]

Having a spotter/sniper team is more efficient (in that you've got way more TUs to blast things with), but there's another way: When the spotter sees an alien, have him take a single step back the way he came. The alien can no longer see him, so he himself can fire without fear of return shots (or of hitting comrades).

Aye, this is what I normally do if my soldier is all alone and runs across an alien a full 20 tiles away. But you won't always have a 20 tile clear line of sight to an alien. Most times there will be an obstruction blocking a visual on the thing. In this case you'll have to try sniping first.

 

Of course, this limits how far you can move per turn (as you need to keep more TUs in reserve for your spotter), but you should be reserving TUs anyway. The main issue is at night, where the aliens can see far further then you can - but if you're running across an open field at night, you'll probably get your spotter killed before you ever obtain a visual on the target, so it's a moot point.

Use flares/incendiary rounds to turn night into day and don't forget to toss Smoke Grenades if you have a lot of open areas to traverse. Yes, they work at night too.

 

- Zombie

[NKF]

When using flares, the general advice is to toss them far and wide, but don't forget that you can only see 16 tiles into darkness. Even if you do spot an alien 20 tiles out thanks to a flare that has been tossed a long distance, be mindful of the small bit of darkness - it may hold an alien in wait. Best thing to counter this is to leapfrog your flares so that they overlap each other as you progress forward.

 

With the sniper/spotter strategy, try to have your sniper team scattered over a wide area behind the spotter, that way you have more angles to fire past the spotter. Flanking rather than following directly behind the spotter, or having flying suits and hovering a tile or two above ground level can help immensely. Basically just give your spotter plenty of space.

 

- NKF

[Cius]

That is what I am trying. I still regularly get a shot in the back though. Flying suits will help I guess.

 

Anyways, that base defence mission went OK but not great. Lost 5 guys and 2 of them where done in by team mates. Once was a spotter getting nailed in the back and once was a rocket guy taking opportunity fire and hitting the wall in front of him rather than the alien so he killed himself. Moron. Anyways, live and learn. My cash flow is doing great! Now that I am producting plenty laser cannons as well as taking out a lot of UFO's I am really rolling in it. Still, I would like to have enough in the bank so that I don't have to sell cannons every 2 days to finance continued production.

[NKF]

I suppose it need not be mentioned, but don't forget to have the snipers kneel as well. Every little bit helps. Keep working on it anyway, you'll soon develop your own way of preserving your scouts from friendly fire.

 

- NKF

[Cius]

I am using the kneeling now more and more. As mentioned earlier I also used to equip my soldiers with a laser pistol in one hand and a laser rifle in the other and primarily shot with the laser rifle so no wonder my guys shot badly.

 

Well I have the hyperwave decoders now but still have had no luck getting a large sectoid ship to nab a leader. Its June now and no PSI. Terror ships are all Snakemen, and most other missions are floater. I have found two bases but both are resupplied by floaters so I think that they are floater bases then correct?

 

Anyways, will keep holding thumbs for eather a small Ethereal ship or a large sectoid ship. My other two bases have now reached the point where they can begin performing missions.

 

I was impressed with my team performance taking out a shot down terror ship in the jungle. Many many Crysallids and not one man lost. They fired accurately and worked well as a team. I took small launchers along as it was before my hyperwave decoders where on line and captured the leader anyways (was hoping for sectoid). I am thinking about re-starting the game a few times until the first terror mission is a sectoid one and trying to a early PSI game but first I will finish this on I reccon.

[NKF]

Yep, the crew species that builds the base will also man and supply the base. TFTD on the other hand does a multiracial thing and only the race that built the base supply the base.

 

By the way, if those bases belong to floaters, be sure to secure them (if you haven't already) for supply ship farming/raiding purposes. Even if you don't manage to find any psionic aliens to research the psi lab, the stream of positive activity points and the cash from excess equipment sales can easily make up for it while you attempt to obtain a suitable test subject.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

In case you haven't noticed this yet, note that you can actively search for alien bases: You don't need to wait for your "spies" to report them to you.

 

To do this, send a craft to a random area of the world and have it simply hover there half an hour or so (game time). Nearby bases will be revealed.

 

It is, of course, possible to cheat by saving, wasting a lot of time/fuel/money on failed re-con flights while simply skipping ground missions, then reloading the game once you've discovered a base. You can quickly "rediscover" it now that you know exactly where it is.

 

Sectoid bases (or even supply ships) can be somewhat dangerous to attack. The trick is to hit 'em hard and fast, lowering their morale as quickly as possible. Tanks are immune to their psi powers and are great for extermination purposes.

 

Ethereal bases/supply ships can be a nightmare. Consider evacuating as soon as you've managed to knock out a single one; get some trooper to throw it over his shoulder, then bail.

 

If you do decide to take the entire building out, make sure you know exactly who'll be subjected to psi first (it's always the same few guys) and disarm/contain them so they don't get into mischief. Consider letting loose some blaster bombs; three well placed shots can usually take out the command center no matter where you are, and the aliens in there have high rank (hence inflicting heavy morale penalties on their associates if killed).

[Cius]

Irritatingly enough the supplys ships both land at night. I hate night missions. There are two bases, one a short distance from my North America base and one a short distance from my European base. Last night I tried to take down a supply ship at the European base despite it being night to get the Elrium. The guys going in all had personal armour, lazer rifles, and medi kits. They where my most experienced troops. I had no way to make light though as I never plan on doing night missions. I started right bellow the UFO. That night vision penalty is terrible. I lost 7 guys all in all for that mission including some of my crack guys. In the end I pulled all they guys into the UFO where there is no light penalty. I cleared the UFO with no further losses and camped the doors. The aliens did not seem to want to come back inside though so I popped a trooper out now and then and found them hanging around the doors and killed the last two soldier Floaters. Was a high price to pay for 150 Elrium units. Anyways, next time I will try to be more organised with electro flares etc. I have never really done night missions due to me never figuring out how to handle them. If I am going to milk them though for Elrium I will need to get more organised and learn how to do night missions.

 

I do patrol areas where I see big ships land or lots of activity to find bases. With hyperwave decoders it becomes a lot easier as just from the supply ship you can figure out exactly where the base is. Thanks for the advice. Any tips on night missions would be much appreciated as I have not done them much. After thinking about it a bit I am guessing that one just has to have each soldier carry two electro flaires and leap frog them forward to keep the 20 vision while rocketing/grenading any obstacles. I have yet to try camp a UFO though as I still preffer storming them.

 

I always try to never save/reload as it makes the game too easy and you never really learn from your mistakes. Playing in what I call hardcore mode means you play more cautiosly.

[NKF]

It's good practice for night combat. Besides, you'll soon get to play really well against supply ships at night. You can always toss a flare on top of the UFO to light the door area. Secure it as you normally would and have another team sweep the rest of the map for any stragglers while the team waiting in ambush does their thing to any aliens coming out of the ship.

 

There's a little path finding problem with the AI that makes them exit via the left-most entrance only. Keep your eyes on that. If you need to breach the UFO (say to plug the lifts to seal off the upper decks), go through the right door.

 

With flares, just launch them out and head towards them. As you get close to them, toss another flare out beyond them. Recover the flares and repeat the process and to toss them out as you approach the other flares. That'll keep you from any nasty surprises as you advance through the field.

 

Or the more exciting lighting method is incendiares. They don't last as long, but have the advantage of ranged deployment and the ability to roast any enemies.

 

Speaking of good old surgical strike. You just need to arm a ship with some soldiers and a blaster launcher each. Two is a good minimum number, but the more the merrier. 3 blaster bombs as BB says is sufficient to knock out the command centre, but I'd recommend taking at least five as a safety buffer.

 

Attack the base, and immediately drop one soldier down to ground level to scout. If you can't see a clear outline of the command center, abort the mission and attack the base again and again until you do.

 

Once you spot the command centre, cut a hole into the center with the bombs. Try to use the side windows if possible, otherwise expend one bomb to make a hole. Plant one blaster bomb between each pair of the upper tables by angling the bombs up at the ceiling underneath them. That'll disable the base. You should be able to accomplish this in at least two turns - or less if you bring more soldiers. Flee back to the exit pads and dust off. You don't get any loot, but you do net 500 points for disabling the base.

 

The short number of turns prevent the ethereals (or sectoids) from getting a chance to react with their psi attacks. It also works very really well against Snakemen if you don't want to tackle their chryssalids in close quarters.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

It's good practice for night combat. Besides, you'll soon get to play really well against supply ships at night. You can always toss a flare on top of the UFO to light the door area. Secure it as you normally would and have another team sweep the rest of the map for any stragglers while the team waiting in ambush does their thing to any aliens coming out of the ship.

 

There's a little path finding problem with the AI that makes them exit via the left-most entrance only. Keep your eyes on that. If you need to breach the UFO (say to plug the lifts to seal off the upper decks), go through the right door.

Don't know why Supply Ships always seem to land at night. It must be a hard-coded thing. That's too bad because a Supply Ship mission during the day is pretty easy to take care of.

 

Since I discovered the route problem with the Supply Ship, I always patch my game. It makes the missions a little bit harder since you can't exploit anything, but it makes the game more realistic. I mean, c'mon, if there is a door the aliens should be able to use it.

 

Speaking of good old surgical strike. You just need to arm a ship with some soldiers and a blaster launcher each. Two is a good minimum number, but the more the merrier. 3 blaster bombs as BB says is sufficient to knock out the command centre, but I'd recommend taking at least five as a safety buffer.

 

Attack the base, and immediately drop one soldier down to ground level to scout. If you can't see a clear outline of the command center, abort the mission and attack the base again and again until you do.

 

Once you spot the command centre, cut a hole into the center with the bombs. Try to use the side windows if possible, otherwise expend one bomb to make a hole. Plant one blaster bomb between each pair of the upper tables by angling the bombs up at the ceiling underneath them. That'll disable the base. You should be able to accomplish this in at least two turns - or less if you bring more soldiers. Flee back to the exit pads and dust off. You don't get any loot, but you do net 500 points for disabling the base.

 

The short number of turns prevent the ethereals (or sectoids) from getting a chance to react with their psi attacks. It also works very really well against Snakemen if you don't want to tackle their chryssalids in close quarters.

My recent strategy for bases is to bring 3 Fusion Hovertanks along for the ride along with 5 soldiers - 1 with a Blaster Launcher and 4 Bombs and the other 4 soldiers act as scouts/spotters. When I make out the outline of the command center, I have my soldier send a Blaster Bomb in to open up a hole in the wall. Then I let my Fusion Hovertanks loose. The nice thing about these tanks is they can't fall under alien control and you never need to reload it's weapon after each use. Sure, it's yield is less than a Blaster Bomb, but it doesn't matter in a surgical strike.

 

- Zombie

[Cius]

Hmm, will have to give the base attack a go. Yesterday I shot down a Muton Supply ship that was part of an infiltration fleet going for North America. I loaded half my guys with Heavy plasma and the other half with laser rifles. Also two rocket launchers. Cleared the map nicely and decided to try my first camping excercise. I lined up 8 guys about 11 tiles from the door they exit from and made them all kneel. After turn 20 they started comming out the door in a rush. Most I managed to gun down but occasionally one would get off a shot and I lost 4 of the 8 guys doing the camping. The last one would not come out so I sent in 6 guys (3 per floor) to find him. It was the leader and he managed to take out all 3 guys I sent his way. So I took the middle floor guys and blasted a way into the right elevator shaft and tried again. This time I shot a hole through the wall of the command centre and caused some explosions on the nav concoles. He still survived that but I took him down next round. I was not particularly happy with the overall results as I lost too many men. Then as the mission ended the game crashed. Got that Windows error message saying send/don't send and then back to desktop. Its very frustrating as I often seem to have crashes from the battlescape. Any ideas or patches that make it more stable?

 

I just glanced at the patches page and will probably install all of Zombies route fixes for UFO's. I already did the supply ship one. A small suggestion would be to package all those route fix ones into one easy to patch zip file???

 

Anyways, my version of the game is ancient so which other patches do I need?

 

Edit: Nevermind about the combined suggestions. Just saw it Zombie. Pays to open ones eyes before opening ones mouth hey

 

To add some info I seem to have the US version of the game as the exe file in my folder says UFO Defense.exe

[Bomb Bloke]

The Windows version of the game was the final one. There were no official updates for it.

 

Regarding the crashes, there really is no way to reliably stop them for good. Luckily there's a work around; grab a copy of my toolpack, extract it into your game folder, and run the EXE splitter.

 

The game was originally made up of two executables, one for the GeoScape segment of the game, and one for the Tactical missions. The Windows version (Collector's Edition, often just called CE) combined these programs into one, but they still act very much like the original did.

 

It's quite common for the game to crash when switching between the two different "modes".

 

Scott (the sire of XcomUtil) worked out how to make the program work via two separate executables again. My toolpack includes a few batch files you can use to start the game using these.

 

For example: In your case, the game crashed when transitioning from the Tactical to the Geoscape engine. Running the "_GeoResume.bat" batch file at this point would cause the Geoscape engine to fire up again exactly where you left off, hence allowing you to continue play (or save the game, at least).

 

The pack also includes my Uniform mod, which you might like to try. It's purely cosmetic, so it'll work regardless of whether you start a new game with it or continue your current campaign.

 

The error reporting "feature" in Windows is a nuisance; you might like to disable it (this greatly reduces the amount of time it takes for a program to "crash", as Windows doesn't eat up your processor time trying to work out what happened then asking you if you want to send that data off to them). To do this, right click My Computer and bring up it's Properties from the context menu, then switch to the Advanced tab. The Error Reporting button allows you to toggle it on/off.

[Cius]

Thanks Bomb Bloke.

 

Will give the tool pack a shot. Also very handy info on turning errors off.

[Cius]

Well, after getting very far into my first game without getting a PSI alien I gave up on it and started again hoping for a lucky terror mission with a sectoid leader early on. By the end of Feb I had shot down and eliminated two terror ships but both where floater or snakeman. A bit dissapointed I carried on playing. Then on the 4th March I saw a large ship landing in the Arctic. I immediately sent a skyranger off to it hoping it was a sectoid ship. Half way there 3 other ships appeared and also landed including a very large! Awesome, a base creation! I changed course for the very large and was extatic too see sectoids when I disembarked my soldiers. Normally I take very high casualties when attacking a ship with PSI aliens but this time I made sure to drop weapons at the end of every turn until I knew who where the PSI dummies. Due to that I lost no men to mind controlled soldiers taking out team-mates. Anyways, I stormed the Bridge ASAP and caught not just a sectoid leader but also a sectoid commander! I immediately put my other research on hold and researched the leader and then Psi. My labs are now built and training has begun. How many months does it normally take to train up decent PSI skills out of curiousity and how do you guys normally go about it? How do you screen soldiers and what PSI Str do you bother to keep them at?

 

I have 3 bases now. The first base has 2 PSI labs and a 3rd almost built with 20 soldiers in training. The other two bases are not combat opperational yet but each have 10 soldiers and a PSI lab almost done. Its just irritating becuase many missions I still loose 0-4 soldiers especially muton missions which have just started and those guys that are dying are all in training right now. I am considering keeping guys away from missions until their PSI training is complete so that I don't waste a whole month for that training slot.

[NKF]

It takes at least 1 month to unlock your psi powers (i.e. skill greater than 0). Once you can start using psi, you can start actively training it in the field and rapidly pump your skill levels to 100. Just go into a battle - any battle, and start using the psi amp. Even if you fail, it counts towards your psi skill improvements, since successes are worth 3 failures. Pretty nifty feature for the game breaker, eh?

 

The most practical way of screening your troops is to hire twice as many troops as there are rooms in your labs. Say, with two labs, have at least forty soldiers on site. Assign 20 to the labs. These trainees should stay out of combat as much as possible while the other 20 can just twiddle their thumbs or go out on missions. Replenish any losses as necessary if there are any. Once the month is over, have all of the trainees swap with the other team. Sack any troops that don't meet your criteria, send off the really good psi cadets to where they are needed, then hire another batch of troops for the next month.

 

You don't need to keep the soldier assigned to a lab to increase your skills to 100, but you do need to stay in the lab if you want your skills to go beyond 100 (slowly). Since you rarely ever need to have skills that high (unless you're bulking up someone who's good but only has moderate Psi strength), you don't really need to re-assign any psi troops back to the labs.

 

As for what psi strength levels to go for - I'd recommend the high 80's to be safe. However, UFO is not as bad as TFTD so you could manage with 70's and up. 60's aren't so bad if they stick to long range psi attacks.

 

If you blitz the aliens with MC during the first few turns and deal a horrible blow to all their top psi units before they can use MC on you, even a 0 strength, 100 skill soldier armed only with a psi amp can be deadly. But that's playing with fire.

 

- NKF

[Cius]

OK, so how many PSI vs normal troops do you normally take into battle? From the wiki it seems that most people play with some stormers, and some PSI troops that remain behind in the skyranger? I don't quiet get that as don't your PSI attacks work much better from close range?

 

Anyways, I was just curious to see what people normally went with for an ideal squad, and how they got to that level.

[NKF]

The thing about psi troopers is that they do perform better at closer ranges, but they are also at their most vulnerable in close range. The same applies to aliens as well - if you were to fight a lone ethereal (on a small scout, no less!), and you brought a bunch of really weak psi units to use as a decoy, the ethereal will be stuck. Since the ethereal will be out there using psi as much as possible, it'll be left exhausted and extremely vulnerable to attack with no means of responding.

 

Distance matters with lower psi skill levels. At higher levels the difference vanishes. So much so that the game isn't fun anymore.

 

You only need to use as many psi troopers as you need. Some use one, some two. Some use enough to immobilize the entire alien squad.

 

There's the added benefit that those staying in the Skyranger can also double as emergency crew for evacuating the ship in case the combat team gets wiped out during the battle (Say a few very well placed blaster bombs).

 

- NKF