Vehicles

[Zomis]

I am kind of new to Apoc, however my brother bought it when it was five hours old!

But that was like 5 years ago (or something like that)

 

So now I was wondering:

Which veichels (damn, how should this be spelled??? ) should I buy and how should I equip them?

My Interceptor gets shot down each time I chase a UFO it gets destroyed!!!

I haven't changed the weapons or anything. (just added a Bio-Transport module to it)

I'm in my third week so you know which weapons I can buy...

[NKF]

I misspell vehicles quite a lot myself. I usually spell it vehicals. Bad spelling habits die hard.

 

Ah, early vehicles.... right.

 

First off, I buy all the stormdogs, wolfhounds and blazers[1] on the market and flog the parts off for a few extra bucks. Well, I need to fill up the little collection tin that I'm going to use to my first Hawk Air Warrior with.

 

I do the same with the pheonix hovercars (I won't be needing them for the first week), but I keep the bolters and janitor missiles that come with them for my hoverbike squadron. I'll also keep the engines and put them in the hoverbikes. I keep the standard issue hovercars though. Never know when they'll come in handy.

 

Now, down to actual business. I buy a flotilla of hoverbikes and arm them with bolter cannons and perhaps janitor or prophet missile arrays. Small squads of four hoverbikes (if I have that many) are then parked at various strategic points on the map as quick response vehicles.

 

I then get rid of the valkyrie's engine and get a better one. It's silly that you start off with a non-standard engine. I then bolt on a pair of lancer lasers. I rarely use the valkrie as a combat ship, but when it is in combat, I want it to hit them hard.

 

By week three, I'll have purchased a hawk or three, and bolted a pair of lancers on them as well. If money permits, I'll swap some of the lancers with lineage plasma cannons, which has the best bang for your buck. Since I normally don't have medium disrupter beams or inversion missiles at this time, I'd fit either another lineage cannon or a plasma missile defense system in the nose, or even a plasma-multi-system. Hawks turn around really slowly, so the plasma multi-system comes in handy in tight air skirmishes with its all round firing radius.

 

By then, the hoverbike forces will have grown, and some are upgraded to rendor or lineage plasma cannons, which ever I can afford. I might arm a few with accuracy modifiers if money permits. But accuracy modifiers aren't a priority.

 

As for general combat, I stay away from the Fast Attack Ships that escort the alien transports. They're quite tough in the early game, and you generally need a lot of firepower to shoot these ships down quickly. I prefer to concentrate all my firepower on the transporters then break off as soon as it's disabled. They are carrying an alien payload which you'll have to deal with if the transport ship manages to get to its dropsite. The fast attack ships are only there to see that the transport ship gets there.

 

 

But that's just me.

 

- NKF

 

[1] Turbobikes. Heck, if they sold actual blazers, I'd buy them anyway...

[The Demi-Godly One]

Since we're on the topic....

Did you know that if you completly strip a hoverbike it is worth negative money, although

all you need to do is put the engine back in.

There, my useless info for the day!(Which I'm sure everyone knew)

 

By the way what does NKF stand for anyway?

[NKF]

Actually, a brand new hoverbike worth $5000, when stripped apart and sold is worth roughly $6580. $2500, for the hoverbike body, $1000 for the engine, $80 for the fuel, $500 for the multi-cannon, and the remainder is from the bullets.

 

As for my nickname. Well, each letter can mean practically anything you want. But really, the letters are made up of my initials. Nothing all that special about it.

 

Then there's this fellow NFK who keeps following me to whatever web forum I participate in. Never seen the bugger make any posts, but people keep talking to him, or her.

 

- NKF

[The Demi-Godly One]

2500 for the hoverbike body? It is worth negative 438 dollars for me.

[Asmodai]

I buy as many Interceptorsn as I can the first week, then in the second week I sell the Ints and buy as many Hawks as I can. Then I just buy as many Hawks as I can per week untill I can get Annihilators, and I seel all the hawks and get those.

[Zomis]

ok, but which Weapons should i use to equip them?

I'm thinking of Plasma Cannon or whatever it was called, because it's good to have long range, lot's of damage and many rounds right?

Which is the best weapon?

 

And how many ints/air hawks/whatever do I need to shot down UFO (type-3 right now)???

[NKF]

Mix and match until you find a combination you're comfortable with. Spend some time in the ufopaedia and compare the gun stats.

 

For early weapons, I like the lineage plasma cannons(i.e. the big one) best overall, since they can be fitted onto most of your combat ships and have the best bang for your buck. However, they are quite expensive, and tend to run out of elerium if you use too many of them too often.

 

Lancer lasers (i.e. the big laser) for the Interceptor or Hawk are quite adequate if you don't want to worry about micromanaging ammunition.

 

For the hoverbikes, use whatever will fit on them. I like to use bolter lasers (i.e. the little one that comes standard issue with pheonix hovercars), since they fit and don't require ammunition, although prophet and janitor missile arrays are also excellent weapons to arm hoverbikes with. A mix of missiles and lasers is always a good idea.

 

I recommend that you arm your ships with whatever you want, but it would be prudent to keep some lasers as backup weapons should you run out of ammunition.

 

- - -

 

The type-3's are quite easy to shoot down, and a swarm of hoverbikes, maybe 6 - 8 or even more of them armed with bolter lasers and missile arrays will do quite nicely.

 

As for the number of ships, get as many hoverbikes as your money allows. Park your hoverbikes in various buildings, one per access chute, so that they can all launch at the same time.

 

For the bigger ships, your one interceptor is more than adequate for the first two weeks if you keep the hovercars. Most of the early alien ships, apart from the fast attack ship, can easily be taken out with your hoverbikes.

 

For the Hawks, three is a nice number, but if you can afford a few more, get them.

 

- NKF

[Asmodai]

I usually give my Hawks the plasma array, Janitor, and Justice missle launchers. On my Annihilators I give them a Heavy Dis beam, Stasis bomb, and Disruptor Bombs.

[Sgt. Strike]

After playing the first two X-Com games, and then Apoc, and figuring out how to sheat, where to get things, etc., I tend to cheat. I mean, upgrade my money, and stuff like that, to more stuff. I don't change any stats on vehicles, etc, just my men and money, and what's in storage.

[Asmodai]

What's that got to do with anything?