I knew this is harder than X-Com 1, but this...

[Privateer]

Having played some XCOM1 and read the FAQ for TFTD, I started my first game. Placed a base off the US's Eastern seaboard, as the FAQ suggested, to cover the generous Yanks. As I did in 1, I set off to build a larger scanner, more living quarters and storage. Refitted one Barracuda with best torpedos and dismissed the other one to save on costs.

 

First USO shows up, Barracuda intercepts, downs it. The team goes in, finds only one alien, takes one casualty.

 

Second USO spotted, downed with the Barracuda heavily damaged. Aquanauts go in, kill four baddies, take six casualties!

 

Result: a barely positive score, tons of money lost. At this point I have no idea how I'll live through the next month without an interceptor craft and with a bunch of rookie soldiers. If a terror site happens, I'll probably lose it, if those first two battles are anything to judge by. And most amazingly, all of the above has taken place on Beginner difficulty!

 

So, if anyone has any hints whatsoever, that could really help me.

[Hobbes]

In general the aliens on TFTD are much tougher and the human weapons are weaker (hmmm... I think I'll confirm this or not by a mathematical comparison) so don't blame yourself. I think most UFO players got their heads served on a platter like we did on the first time at TFTD.

 

Anyways my troops of TFTD have a bigger casualty rate than UFO. Even with magnetic ion armor the soldiers get killed a lot by a single shot of a Sonic Cannon. But worse are some of the aliens, especially the Lobstermen, which are done best with a Thermal Shock Launchers, Disruptor Pulses or hand to hand weapons. Most aliens usually have a weak spot to HTH combat so get your men equipped with thermal tazers.

 

As for the beginning remember that you can only use the Gas Cannon and the Dart pistol and rifle, plus grenades, on terror missions. All other Earth weapons, with the exception of Gauss, are inoperable on land missions. You also should go for the Gauss rifle right at the beginning and afterwards on Aqua-Plastics. You need to research first a Deep One corpse, but they only appear on Gillmen terror missions. In any case you'll need a live Deep One later for Ion Armor research. Careful with the Deep Ones on combat: a single of their electric attacks can kill an unarmored soldiers at medium range (8-10 tiles). If you luck out and there's Aquatoids instead on your first mission it's not that bad since the Calcinites are needed later for HTH research but you'll also need the body of a Gillmen to start on that.

When you finally get Aqua-Plastic Armor, go for Magnetic Navigation and Ion-Beam Accelerators. Then research the live Deep One and you'll be able to research Ion Armour, which will help in keeping the soldiers alive (plus the Medikits).

But opps, meanwhile you also need to the Sonic Cannon also and Thermal Pulse Grenades. Remember that, unlike UFO, you can throw several at the same location and the first explosion won't eliminate them from the map: they will explode one by one causing massive damage to the target area. Also you can open a door before you step in: simply face the soldier towards the door and hit the right mouse button.

[NKF]

First of all: As usual, read some of the older threads. Plenty of good advice to get ideas from.

 

Next: Master UFO on superhuman.

 

One bit of advice I'd like to share is when your Triton/Leviathan lands on the western edge of the map. If that happens, the hatch will be open towards the map rather than away from it. You should then spend as much time as you can inside the safety of your ship and use its doors to your advantage. Open the hatch every turn and fire at any aliens that come into view. Shuffle your soldiers around so everyone can get a chance to fire. If no aliens appear after a while, send someone out, look around and head back in if you spot any trouble. Use the grenade relay to toss a grenade at any aliens in the distance if possible (use a new soldier to throw the grenade, the scout will want to retreat). If you have mag. ion armour, you could try floating up to get a better view and make sure no floating aliens are hiding above your ship.

 

Spend as much time as you want in the ship, going over 100 turns if you have to. Then once you feel you've cleared the LZ (or at least a majority of the USO crew), or if you the aliens are no longer moving, disembark from the ship. I'd recommend doing the same thing in terror missions too. Though it can mean losing a few civilians, a small negative score is preferable to a huge one in addition to losing most of your soldiers.

 

 

Now for a bit of biased equipment advice:

 

Invest in a good supply of gas cannons. They're versatile, very powerful and work on land as well as underwater. Probably not as destructive as a hydro-jet cannon, but they are a considerable upgrade of UFO's heavy cannon (8 shells). They're also the only weapon that can use incendiary shells on land (well, the others can, but only via reaction fire). Incendiary shells work twice as good on land, and are excellent indirect fire weapons to take out snipers in that three-storey storage building on port missions, or on top of/inside the resorts on the island missions.

 

Early on, upgrade to the gauss pistols if you can. It's a fairly good spray-and-pray weapon with a huge clip size. Makes a great replacement for the dart gun, the only pistol class weapon in the entire X-Com series that I truly loathe. The gauss pistol also outdoes the jet harpoon gun in everything but accuracy. Cheap, quick to produce and quantity are the keywords. Makes and excellent compliment for the more superior gauss rifles, gas cannons and other heavier weapons later on.

 

As for alien technology, consider getting the sonic pulser as quickly as you can. It's the most satisfying and most destructive grenade in the game. Rather common in most standard missions too.

 

When going for the sonic weapons, you have quite a nice choice to choose from. From the faster and higher capacity pistol to the slower cannon. Even the sonic pistol outdoes the heavy-gauss, so you have nothing to lose when choosing what sonic weapons to start with. They're all good.

 

But weapons aside, I'd recommend you focus your research on getting better armour. The starting weapons and gauss rifles are adequate for a while, but what you really lack is protection. Once you can at least survive the occasional sonic cannon blast, the game becomes much more manageable.

 

- NKF

[Privateer]

Thanks for everyone's help. I seem to be getting a hand in combat now. The key for me was getting to use grenades. Maybe it's just me imagining things, but the rifles fire in TFTD doesn't seem to be remotely as accurate as in the original. However, grenades still explode and still pack enough punch to kill the bad guys. So, I use them for all my alien busting needs with decent results. It's actually surreal that my soldiers can't seem to hit a target using their rifles, yet can easily toss a grenade and have it land right at the baddie's feet. But after seeing how well those grenades fly through water, it doesn't surprise me that much. Must be magical grenades.

 

Anyway, now I'm confused about where to put my bases so that they'd effectively cover what's important. In the original it was easy, as I only had to watch the land mass, so a base in the middle of Europe, the US and East Asia were able to cover most of what I'd care about with maybe listening posts in South America, Africa and Australia. But now I'm confused.

 

First of all, am I to watch just the territory of my funders or the oceans as well? How come I don't see the funders' borders, like I used to in the original? Finally, where do you suggest to place first base? Other bases?

[NKF]

Well, it's the same. It just a matter of looking at it in the reverse. The territory you'll be looking after is the sea. The aliens send their infiltrators to spots just off the shore of the country they are infiltrating.

 

Look for a large mass of seabed to cover that are also close to the various funding cartels and organisations (the green text gives you a good idea of which areas they control).

 

One suggestion would be in the middle of the Atlantic (Between Bermuda and the Canary islands for example, or Syndicate players might recall the location of a certain oil rig.). This lets you cover a fair amount of countries. You get within close proximity to the USA, Icelandic union, Scandinavia, Euro-syndicate, Eurasia and Alaska. New Mexico, Brazil, Africa Corp. and the Arabian bloc are also not too far off. You can get quite a generous dose of fund boosts if you can do very well here and impress the whole lot of them. (yes, I peeked at the game for the names )

 

The pacific has plenty of seabed to cover, but there aren't very many funding organisations there for you to please. Closer inland, the sea of Japan/China or India are decent places to start.

 

As for non-primary bases, well, just place them in strategic locations to improve your coverage of the globe. At least have one radar/interception base in the North and South Atlantic, Indian Ocean and the North and South Pacific seas.

 

Just keep in mind that the more land mass you have around your base, the harder it will be for you to shoot down enemy subs.

 

- NKF

[Privateer]

Thanks, NKF. I still don't quite understand. I can't just concentrate on covering the oceans alone because the objects I need to protect are on land (I presume). So if I stick my base in the middle of Atlantic, wouldn't the aliens just sneak into the middle of the US where I have no coverage and infiltrate it?

 

PS Syndicate ruled. That place was called Mid-Atlantic Relay Platform, if I'm not mistaken?

[NKF]

The aliens cannot infiltrate any of the funding nations except by landing in the waters near whomever they're trying to convince. They cannot land inland, nor can you attack them while flying over land.

 

The only thing on land that may be of any real concern are the ports, which get attacked by the occasional terror ship.

 

Think of land in TFTD as you would think of the sea in UFO -- with the only difference being that you cannot engage air combat over land (despite the fact that you are using 'flying' subs and that sonic and gas weapons can work in or out of water).

 

In the case of placing a base in the Atlantic -- yes the aliens could attempt to infiltrate the US via the Pacific. So a good idea would be to set up a few extra radar posts over in the Pacific to boost your radar coverage. But you needn't worry about any infiltrators flying over the US.

 

- NKF

[Jman4117]

Well actually you only need to protect the coastlines of the countries. All of the cities in the game are coastal. So as long as you have coastal coverage you are good to go.

 

I usually have bases near both American coasts, in the Mediterranean, and near Japan. This covers most of the funders. Later, I build in the southern atlantic and pacific and in the middle of the indian ocean, so that I can get good sea coverage.

[Hobbes]

Like is has been said before it helps to think in terms of oceans, not continents when placing your bases.

There are six oceans to consider: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Mediterranean, Antarctic and Arctic. Due to the largeness of the Pacific it is better to consider that it has 4 possible locations: NE (Japan and Asian Coalition), NW (Alaska and US), SE (Australasia and Free China) and SW (Brazil), while the Atlantic is better divided into three: Eastern US seaboard, European and Southern regions. All together this adds about some 11 bases if you want to keep decent coverage of all areas (which is not necessary). It really depends on personal options but here's a couple of thoughts to help decide:

- For the Atlantic and Artic you'd need four bases at least: S. Atlantic (Brazil and Africa); Mediterranean (Europe, Africa, Egypt, Arab Bloc); Arctic (above Iceland, covering Scandinavia, Europe and Eurasia), Eastern US (close to the Caribbean Sea so that it can also cover Mexico).

- On the Pacific you'll need to get two bases, one covering Korea, Japan and Asia and the other Alaska and the western US. If the eastern US base covers Mexico fine, otherwise you might place the base off California to give some coverage over the area. Another base is usually needed close to Australasia but you can skip the SW area if you place the S.Atlantic base close to Brazil.

- Finally a base on the Indian Ocean to cover Africa, Asia, the Arabian Bloc and Egypt.

 

Some of these options are more prioritary than others. Usually I tend to consider the Artic/Caribbean/NW Pacific/India for my first bases since all locations cover more than a country.

And here's something else that might help to decide: each country's share of the funding at the beginning.

USA 13,6%

Alaska 5,8%

Euro-Syndicate 6,3%

Arabian Bloc 7,3%

Egyptian Cartel 7,5%

Africa Corp. 3,3%

Brazilian Union 2,9%

New Mexico 5,4%

Asian Coalition 12,9%

Scandinavia 4,5%

Neo-Japan 5,6%

Free China 7,8%

Australasia 3,5%

Korea 8,4%

Eurasia 3,2%

Icelandic Union 1,8%

[Privateer]

Thanks everyone. Now a starting base near the US doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore. It has two costs to cover with just two big funders. East Asia looks more and more attractive though. With only one cost, which I can cover with one base and two big funders on it... A Mediterranean base would probably be able to cover most of Europe and Scandinavia. I think I'll start with those two and later add two more on US's and Mexico's coasts. Then one more off India and it's pretty much all set. So, five bases in all.

[Privateer]

One little question. How do you fight this menace they call Lobstermen?!

 

I've had a cruise ship terror attack happen and when I landed I found those guys. The first baddie took about ten Gauss rifle bursts to die! And even then, as I discovered later in the battle, he didn't die - just got knocked out!

 

Nothing gets these guys. Nothing! I encountered one in the kitchen and here's the menu I fed it: 3 Gauss rifle bursts into the back from near point-blank range, 1 regular grenade, 1 Sonic Pulser, and about 5 or 6 kitchen stoves and propane tanks, which detonated from the blast. Following this treat, the goddamn beast came out of the kitchen and killed my soldiers.

 

To make a long story short, I took massive casualties and retreated. Though I deserve the credit for making the retreat orderly and even capturing most of the enemy bodies and weapons. And while this does make me feel a little better, it doesn't change the SNAFU of a situation I'm in.

 

So, with my soldiers being heros and hauling home those lobstermen bodies, I hoped that an autopsy would reveal a way to fight them. No such luck. The report just says what I already know - the darn things are tough beyond imagination.

 

There is a reasonably easy way to kill them, right? I'm not supposed to try and pound a ship full of these guys to a pulp using just my Gausses, right?

[Hobbes]

Lobstermen eat Gauss for breakfast....but they are vulnerable to Thermal Shock Bombs and hand to hand weapons, such as the thermal tazer, vibro blade and so on. In close quarters like you described it is better to give your soldiers HTH weaponry while at long range is better to take them out with the Thermal Launchers. Remember that the stun bombs have an area effect, i.e., they are excellent when used on groups of aliens since the blast spreads over a large area.

Sonic Cannons also help although it takes a number of shots to drop them and Disruptor Pulse Launchers are even better that the cannons.

[Privateer]

So, the best way to deal with a lobsterman is to come up to it and poke it with a tazer? I'm sure my soldiers will just love hearing this OK, maybe I'm taking the game too seriously.

 

Thanks for the advice. Now, how do you know when to equip your men with Thermo-shock launchers? You don't find out who you will be fighting until the battle begins if you don't have a, what's it called, mindwave decoder. I suppose you could haul around the tazers, but giving each man a thermo-shock launcher in his backpack... Does it work?

[Privateer]

I guess I'm begining to tire everyone with my newb questions, but I'll push my luck a little longer.

 

Here's my problem now. I've captured a couple of enemy weapons: a thermal lance and a vibro blade, but I can't research them. Is there a prerequisit I'm missing?

 

Also, what do I have to research to be able to build better combat subs? The Barracudas are not quite up to the job when it comes to medium and larger largets.

[Hobbes]

Always bring along thermal tazers and a couple shok launchers onboard. Even if there's no Lobstermen around the launchers work pretty good on the other aliens and HTH weapons are a must since most aliens have a special vulnerability to them.

If you're not accostumed to using them trying playing a few missions using only sonic pulsers, shock launchers and HTH weapons. After a while you'll start to see better what are their advantages and limitations.

For me it is usual to have shock launchers normaly assigned to squads: their splash damage is great and they you don't have to worry too much about the range since the most it can happen is your soldier being knocked out unconscious as well as the aliens.

 

PS - You need to retrieve and research a Calcinite corpse (they appear on Aquatoid terror sites) for the vibroblade. Then with the vibroblade and the Gillman autopsy you can get the thermic lance.

For the Manta you need Magnetic Navigation, Zrbite and then Transmission Resolver. At that point you should be able to reseach Alien Sub Construction, which after you've done Magnetic Ion Armor allows for research on the Manta.

[NKF]

Thermal tazers are frankly the only starting weapon you've got that can knock out a lobsterman (not counting phosphor, which takes too long) with considerable ease.

 

A thermal shok cannon is a very powerful device and can knock out most units for a ridiculously high number of turns. You might as well bring one along on every mission. It incapacitates lobstermen incredibly quickly, and it works wonders on practically every other alien race -- more importantly, the larger units. Yes, you can get the usual stat boosts with the TSC.

 

Of course, you don't want to stuff your containment pod with soldier class aliens, so a few magna-blast or GC-He shells can kill off the unconcious soldiers with no trouble, ignoring the species special immunities and weaknesses. Don't forget to toss away the sonic weapon and its clip beforehand if you want to save them.

 

- NKF

[Crazy Photon]

Thanks for the advice. Now, how do you know when to equip your men with Thermo-shock launchers? You don't find out who you will be fighting until the battle begins if you don't have a, what's it called, mindwave decoder. I suppose you could haul around the tazers, but giving each man a thermo-shock launcher in his backpack... Does it work?

It'll probably work but you'll have to be careful not to run into the 80 items limit...

 

Always bring along thermal tazers and a couple shok launchers onboard

 

I usually bring 1 tazer per 2 aquanauts and 1 medikit per 2 aquanauts, so I can save lots of item spaces for weapons... and I'd recommend to have at least 2 aquanauts with only shock launchers if you want to capture aliens...

[Rattler]

At first when you have very little experience at the game you will have to run away from the lobsterman terror sites(and even a few sub missions) simply cause you gots no clue what to do. They are simply damn impossible to kill with out previously said weapons. So a orderly retreat is the only thing to do in the beginning.

 

As a side note the terror sites are only hard because you got the hardest to kill enemy outta of all the games(lobsterman) teamed up with the thing that has the best accruacy and reactions in the game(bio-drones) Your gonna take casualties even with mag ion armour and sonic cannons and experienced men and experienced knowledge as to what to do incase of lobstermen attack(just had a mental imagine of a disruptor pulse launcher behind glass with a sign above saying "Incase of Lobsterman attack, break glass").

[Privateer]

Well, just as I thought things were getting managable... this happens. It's another cruise ship terror site (man, I'm starting to dread those!). This time it's the yellow mind-controlling aliens (start with a T) and also sectoid-like aliens with big heads. Biodrones. And THIS. "This" is an indestructable, accurate, four-tile Reaper-like menace with lightning reaction. It doesn't even twitch from either Gauss fire or tazers. The only thing I have left to try is grenades, but I can't use them because civvies are not smart enough to find their way out of the area.

 

So,

 

1. What is it?

2. How do I kill it?

3. Is it normal for it to appear within five months of the start of the game?

4. Are you supposed to struggle through the game like I do or am I just not doing something right strategically?

[NKF]

See the Triscene thread for answers. They accompany the Tasoth on land terror missions. If the aquatoids are with them, then you're probably facing a 'mixed' crew. You might want to watch out for the occasional lobsterman and gill-man.

 

As for your dilemma -- ignore the civilians. Not stopping the alien will just make matters worse.

 

- NKF

 

P.S: Regarding lobstermen, keep in mind that they resist explosives and only receive half the normal damage from them (in addition to their under armour). Therfore, if you want to use pulsers and DPL's, remember to keep a few extra handy.

[Hobbes]

See the Triscene thread for answers. They accompany the Tasoth on land terror missions. If the aquatoids are with them, then you're probably facing a 'mixed' crew. You might want to watch out for the occasional lobsterman and gill-man.

I used to believe that Mixed Crews mean Aquatoids, Tasoths plus their terrorists friends (Bio-Drones, Calcinites, etc.) appear. I don't recall a Lobsterman or a Gillman ever appearing on Mixed Crews. Are you sure?

[Rattler]

I had a Aquatoid, Tasoth, Gillman, Calcinte, Triscene/Xarquid, Deep one with bio-drones terror site but never seen a terror site that had added in lobsterman.

[NKF]

I have had lobstermen in mixed crews before, although it appears Tasoth seem to be more dominant. At one time I thought they were just a tasoth crew with terror units assigned from other crews.

 

I suppose it might be a fault with the random number generator.

 

- NKF

[Privateer]

I think I figured out what I was doing wrong: research. But that's only half of success because I still don't know how to do it right It looks like Gauss is a waste of time initially. So, I stick with harpoons, grenades and gas cannons while I research confiscated sonic weapons and pulser. I'm not sure how valuable armor is too, seeing how it's mostly a one-shot-one-kill deal no matter if my men are armored or not. So, I think I'll go with Particle Disturbance (for profit while no artefacts are captured), Sonic guns/Pulser to have a fighting chance against those badder enemies. But I'm still not sure what to do after that.

 

So, I'm wondering what do you guys research and in what order.

[Hobbes]

It looks like Gauss is a waste of time initially. So, I stick with harpoons, grenades and gas cannons while I research confiscated sonic weapons and pulser. I'm not sure how valuable armor is too, seeing how it's mostly a one-shot-one-kill deal no matter if my men are armored or not.

Gauss might be weaker than the lasers on UFO but the Gauss rifle is the best autofire weapon on the game (none of the sonic weapons has autofire capability). Also it gives some improvement to your soldiers fighting power than the harpoon launchers.

Another thing on concentrating on Sonic weapons at the beginning is that you'll have to either recover plenty of loot to arm your squad or spend money manufacturing the sonic weapons and the ammunition (not to mention how fast ammo goes on TFTD and how much Zrbite your engineers will need).

Also I'm almost certain that the research of the Sonic weapons is what triggers the appearance of Lobstermen/Tasohs craft. I haven't tried it on TFTD but on my current game of UFO I'm on September and I haven't researched the heavy plasma yet and the hyperwave decoders haven't detected any Ethereals dropping from the sky yet.

Either way it might be a toss up: you'll need all technologies but I would go for the advanced armor so that my soldiers can survive and get better. It really helps when your soldiers have 80 TUs and their shots get right on target.