Tips?

[404]

Well started playing some games and I started understanding the game but whenever I progress, there are yellow aliens and large alien subs which I can't seem to destroy in any way. I try to skip these as possible but then after a month everyone drops the funds to the floor and I lose... Are there any suggestions to kill these or to progress without losing? I have maxed my researches and can't find better weapons, I stay with D.U.P. and Ajax which are not super effective against these large subs...

[NKF]

These yellow aliens, do they look like lobsters? If yes, then don't worry. They're meant to be very tough.

 

The game gradually starts sending tougher and tougher aliens and ships at you. You cannot shoot down every ship at first, you have to defeat the ones you can, research the technology that you recover from each mission, and upgrade your weapons. It's a bit of an iterative process.

 

Your ground missions will be greatly helped if you research all of the Sonic weapons that the aliens use. This will also unlock the Sonic Oscillator, which will help your Barracudas shoot down any enemy sub except the Dreadnought. The sonic pulser is also a great equaliser for ground battles, which you probably want to research the first thing since the aliens carry lots of themt, it's relatively easy to use even by rookie aquanauts, and it is very powerful.

 

- NKF

[Bomb Bloke]

The secret behind the sonic oscillator is that its range exceeds just about any alien craft - meaning that, if you tell your ships to attack "aggressively", they'll get shot down, but if you have them fire from a safe distance the aliens won't be able to return fire.

 

Don't go thinking gauss is any good. It isn't.

 

Very often you don't need to shoot down subs - they'll land on their own. If you know a ship is too large to blast, then just have your Triton follow it around instead. Note that the first two subs you see in your campaign will usually land near your base, so it's typically a waste of resources to send Barracudas after them.

[404]

Thanks, for a good start which researches are good to start on, Gauss? Medi-Kit? Grenades?

[Veki]

Welcome to the forum.

 

I research Medi-Kit first and the if I have it (usually I do) Sonic pulsar. After that all Sonic weapons unitl I get Sonic Oscillator.

[NKF]

They're all great topics to start, though Gauss tech, as poor as it is in the long run, is actually a good one to start off with as it's quick to research and the first two weapons are fantastic upgrades for the Jet Harpoons and Hydrojet/AP. You may want to stop at just the Gauss pistol and jump right into the Sonic tech after you've done your first couple of missions. If anything Gauss ammo is easy to manufacture until you have secured a steady supply of sonic ammo.

 

The alternative is to stick with the mighty Gas Cannons (HE shells pack a punch) until you can research some sonic weapons. In which case I'd recommend medikits as a good first option. Your aquanauts tend to get killed instantly before you have some protection, but it's still great to have regardless. Especially for the stimulants to revive unconscious aquanauts and the occasional aquanaut that's just hanging there on the last few hitpoints.

 

Sonic Pulsers are definitely recommended to be high on your priority list - but you have time to research the medikit before starting on it.

 

- NKF

[404]

Started from scratch and got a fair quantity of artifacts. Got the Sonic Pulser, Blasta, Zbrite, Alien Learning Arrays among some other weapons... As you mentioned, I'll try on the Pulser and research Sonic tech tree as much as possible then.

[silencer_pl]

I generally tend to go for Gauss Rifle, then med-kits, by then you should have deep-one corpse, so after that I race for Aqua Armor. After that lobsterman should appear, so Sonic Blasta or Sonic Cannon are desperatly needed.

[Zombie]

They're all great topics to start, though Gauss tech, as poor as it is in the long run, is actually a good one to start off with as it's quick to research and the first two weapons are fantastic upgrades for the Jet Harpoons and Hydrojet/AP. You may want to stop at just the Gauss pistol and jump right into the Sonic tech after you've done your first couple of missions. If anything Gauss ammo is easy to manufacture until you have secured a steady supply of sonic ammo.

 

The alternative is to stick with the mighty Gas Cannons (HE shells pack a punch) until you can research some sonic weapons. In which case I'd recommend medikits as a good first option. Your aquanauts tend to get killed instantly before you have some protection, but it's still great to have regardless. Especially for the stimulants to revive unconscious aquanauts and the occasional aquanaut that's just hanging there on the last few hitpoints.

 

Sonic Pulsers are definitely recommended to be high on your priority list - but you have time to research the medikit before starting on it.

I agree, at the start you will not have much to research anyway so you might as well get started on Gauss. Depending on alien activity you can normally finish gauss pistol+clip and the gauss rifle+clip before the first alien terror starts. Always good to have a little better firepower for those types of missions. It's up to you what to research next, but if I recover a sonic pulser all my research tech goes into that immediately. Those really are the equalizer for me as the sonic line of research takes a long time to complete.

 

Medi-Kits? Meh, until you have armor most hits will be kill shots anyway. Stimulants are nice to have as is the ability to heal wounds, but I haven't really gotten attached to any of the soldiers I start with so no remorse if they die, hehe.

 

- Zombie

[Alienated]

I stay with D.U.P. and Ajax which are not super effective against these large subs...

Ajax is poor indeed but the D.U.P. head torpedoes rock. You can shoot down anything with that including a Dreadnought only you have to send four Barracudas at the target, a Battleship needs two, and if you are very lucky, you may shoot down a fleet supply cruiser too with two Barracudas (2x2x3 torpedoes). It happens the alien sub destroys your barracuda(s) (sometimes in one hit), then you can reload the game or you just leave the aliens alone. Intercepting those large subs isn't worth the risk.

 

Currently I play a game with only one soldier to destroy alien colonies and synomium devices and I just crash the alien subs to see how I can manage with the funding only. Well, very well! Now I have eight bases with hangars and sonars, I have five Barracudas and a Triton in August. I made a mistake however. I researched in the first month the gauss cannon for the small subs but it is very lousy. Well, it works well against medium sized subs but it is harder to shoot down an Escort by gauss than a Dreadnought by D.U.P., I mean it takes more reloads.

 

If you don't wish to reload (cheat), then you do better to wait until the large sub lands but note that in floating base attack and infiltration missions the subs won't land. And the two floating base attack Dreadnoughts can detect your base so you must fight them.

 

And some more tips. You can always catch up with a very small alien sub (survey ship), it can't outrun you and it neither returns fire. Therefore the gas cannon is perfect for that because it takes dirt cheap ammo. And use D.U.P. against the rest. Each alien mission is introduced by a Survey ship except surface attacks (terror).

 

Now my research tips. I agree the gauss pistol is a good weapon for its auto-shot ability, and maybe the gauss rifle is also worth the research efforts. However, the sonic cannon, the vibro blade, the mag. ion armor and the new crafts are neccessary otherwise the game is going to be frustrating by May.