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[Geordy]

I find the time modes are useless. The only options that are useful are Pause and insanely fast. The other modes are just too slow. I mean comon at the second most fast mode you still can count the seconds running by! The problem with the fastest mode is if you run into an alert you dont know whats it about. (Alien sight, Ufo or what?)

[Abi79]

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[Abi79]

It's frustrating that one can't set the time when the time compression should stop. For example, one time I saved the game and used the fastest time compression. At 17:05 hours I was attacked by Diablo. Since I saved at 14:00 hours, I needed to wait and wait and wait... 'till the time would have been ~16:55 hours, as I think that every group needs to get a car with soldiers to another group to attack it, no? (and I would have liked to kill the damn Diablo's before they made the attack) After some time I got nervous and started a new game :ranting:

...but I got a lesson from all this: never ever select the normal difficulty setting

Originally posted by gufu1992@Feb 1 2006, 02:50 AM
Note to self:
Even if battleship miss all of your 20 hoverbikes-your score won't be positive any time soon.(The thing destroyed literaly1/3 of the city while figthin hoverbikes.)

Pull on your flying suit(u know - the second avalible armor),Fly up,And let your HE autocannnons lose! :evil: :guns: :Brain: :monkey_dance:

The point in equipping Justice Missiles on cars and bikes is to keep them viable so they can fire from really far away, while your Air Warriors or self-built ships take on the bigger badder alien ships. You shouldn't be attacking anything that has missiles with cars or bikes exclusively. They'll get plowed. For medium Difficulty, this works for me:

First Week: Lasers

Second Week (or when the first fast attack and transporter ships show up): Prophets against the fast attack ships.

Third Week (or when the first Destroyer makes an appearance: Justice Missiles from far away while Air Warriors engage close range

Just a note: Valkyries are faster than any of the other human ships with the best engines, so they can be nice for running down those smaller ships. I like keeping one around until the first Air Warrior becomes available.

I just read that thing about the Aliens showing up with better gear sooner if you raid the crap out of people enough times. Was just wondering: The Cult of Sirius seems to have less stuff if you raid them frequently. Does it ever get to the point where they only have like one guy with a pistol or can you always expect at least six Cultists?

The class of alien ships that show up doesn't seem to be a reaction to your score so much as how well you're doing at shooting them down. I've noticed that if you don't shoot down a lot of the ships in the first week, the first alien invasion the second week is typically 2 Transports and 3 Fast Attack Ships. In my games where I've shot down every single ship in the first week it was 2 Transports and 2 Fast Attack Ships. Then if I shot all of those down, it would be like a mix of tranports and scouts Until the aliens finally got peeved and sent in something bigger a week later.

Anyway, for research advice, the biggest limitation to research is the advanced labs. All you need for Adv. Bio Labs is to research a single Brainsucker Pod (much faster research than any other living alien). For Adv. Q. Physics, you have to research one of the UFO parts from anything bigger than the UFOs you see in week 1. I think one of the three researches faster but I forget which. Easy enough to find out by saving/reloading. To get the Adv. Workshops, just research the probe after you've finished the other two UFO parts (navigation, propulsion, power source). I usually build an extra bio lab and two extra Q. Physics labs. Check for scientists at the beginning of each day, especially Q. Physics guys as it can sometimes be hard to get enough for the three labs by week 2, which is when you'll want them.

Personally, I don't really think Devastator Cannons are all that. Shortly after they come into play, the aliens will have personal shields so you'll want to be using stun weapons on them until you can get the Toxigun anyway. Although they do show up faster in Superhuman, I guess.

Originally posted by Abi79@Feb 6 2006, 08:14 PM
It's frustrating that one can't set the time when the time compression should stop. For example, one time I saved the game and used the fastest time compression. At 17:05 hours I was attacked by Diablo. Since I saved at 14:00 hours, I needed to wait and wait and wait... 'till the time would have been ~16:55 hours, as I think that every group needs to get a car with soldiers to another group to attack it, no? (and I would have liked to kill the damn Diablo's before they made the attack) After some time I got nervous and started a new game :ranting:

...but I got a lesson from all this: never ever select the normal difficulty setting

Lots of people losing organizations to infiltration. If you watch the alien ships carefully, you can see exactly where they are dropping off troops whenever they show up. They hover over the top of the building for a while and drop this little smoky/zappy white column thing. As long as you clear out the buildings after they show up, nobody should be getting infiltrated. Not all UFOs drop off troops.

UFO 1 - Probe: Acts strictly as an escort.

UFO 2 - Scout: Drops off troops, sometimes doesn't when with transports. One of the smallest ships, shaped more like a hubcap.

UFO 3 - Transport: Large purple UFO. Pancake shaped. Drops off infiltrators but not particularly dangerous. All infiltrator dropoff ships drop aliens off in the building they hover over and one of the buildings near it, so if you really want to be a perfectionist, save the game and investigate all the buildings near the initial site to figure out which one the extras are in.

UFO 4 - Fast Attack: Typically shows up with the Transport the first time. Looks like a larger, nastier scout. Very dangerous to your smaller vehicles at this time. Try to bag at least one when you first get the chance as these guys have Medium Disruptors.

I don't remember the numbers on the rest. The next is typically the assault ship. It's the one that's really long up and down. Not very dangerous, but a lot harder to kill and drops a lot of aliens off for its size.

Next is usually the Destroyer, which is the first ship to have missiles and it too can drop troops off. Great ships to raid since they mostly have humanoid aliens (lots of gear).

Then it's bombers which don't drop troops off. They have the multimissile which never does seem to split up and hit multiple targets but I'm guessing does a smidge more damage. If they show up by themselves it typically means they're just there to do damage to the city.

Then comes the Battleships and Motherships. Both are huge and can drop off infiltrators. Sometimes the mothership just shows up to wreck the city or drop off that Overspawn thing, which I've only seen once and am still trying to figure how to knock out without killing.

Originally posted by *Happy*@Jan 26 2006, 09:25 PM
:help: I get creamed when fighting skeletoids with cloaking devices and entropy launchers - I cant even see them, and they fill me full of those @!*$ missiles in no time. It's especially bad if they're supported by lots of grenade-throwing anthropoids. Any suggestions on how to beat them? In enclosed areas waithing behing a corner with devastator cannons set on auto works well, but in open areas I have great difficulties.

You are in a tough spot in the game. Basically, you kind of have to tough it out until you can fight fire with fire, i.e. use those personal shields yourself. Here are a few tips that might help.

If you find yourself trapped by multiple incoming enemies, sometimes what I would do (before I got shields) was drop a few smokes to block their view. The enemy won't fire unless they can see you and so will wander into the smoke, until they are adjacent to your units. If you are lucky, you will gun them down before they know what hits them (may take a few reloads to achieve this). Don't sweat losing armors and equipment to entropy missiles. You will be producing your own x-com armor in a few days.

I saw alot of good tips in this thread but I just want to reiterate, you must race as fast as you can to get toxiguns and toxin level B as quickly as you can. The devastator cannons simply don't cut it after awhile. On the flipside, after you get toxiguns and personal shield generators will full x-com armor and marsec bodies, the game becomes kinda boring.

More tips to help y'all get started, in no particular order at all.

1. When raiding the Cult of Sirius, take special care not to over-use explosives (AP nade). Stun and smokes are okay. This is because those explosions will destroy the equipment on the ground, which is the whole reason you are raiding in the first place! Their heavy rocket launchers will cause you much pain early on, both due to their effects on your units and their destructive effects on the "loot".

2. I'm not sure about easier difficulty levels, but on medium: trust me, you'll need to do a fair bit of cult raiding to boost your funds. Early on, the prized item is this drug that initially sells for 4500, which you will find as many as 8 or as few as 0 in a single run. After selling all the weapons as well, I'd get about 5000 to 25000 per run.

3. Try to avoid standing on dead cultist bodies when in a firefight (or for that matter, when you are fighting aliens as well). Cultists in particular, tend to be heavy launcher/HE autocannon/AP grenade happy and any explosion in your vicinity will ignite all the munitions on the ground, with disasterous effects on your units.

4. What did I use my money on? Probably aircraft, bribing organizations back to neutral level after collateral damage during UFO runs, base purchases and upgrades, then lastly everything else. The first is a good investment because you can always sell your aircraft for the same price if you need quick cash for some reason (it's just like money in the bank). The second is a terrible waste and avoid it if possible (don't bother attacking fast moving UFOs with too many missles.

5. You can manufacture items for cash, but don't expect it to be as profitable as it was in UFO1/2. Most of your cash will come from recovering motherships. After I finished researching personal cloaking devices, I sold all the ones I had in my base inventory for a sweet 1/2 million. Don't sell the personal shields, they are essential and time consuming to make yourself (they look like handheld mirrors).

6. On the topic of aircraft (we all know ground vehicles are trash), I decided not to use bikes because they are simply too fragile for me. I started with valks with a couple hovercars, then upgraded to all valks, and so on.

7. Unlike UFO1/2, you can let a few (theoreticall, all) UFOs do whatever the hell they want and not lose any support if you keep tract of where aliens were inserted and raid those buildilngs. Make use of the UFO influence graph and check it often. You don't want the level of influence to exceed that middle line in the graph.

[The Fifth Horseman]

I just read that thing about the Aliens showing up with better gear sooner if you raid the crap out of people enough times. Was just wondering: The Cult of Sirius seems to have less stuff if you raid them frequently. Does it ever get to the point where they only have like one guy with a pistol or can you always expect at least six Cultists?

No, you can always expect a certain minimum number and equipment.
Also, how many cultists you will encounter (and how large will the map be), is dependant on how many soldiers you send in.

[Geordy]

I wonder - why do those cultists drive around in vehicles and enter buildings? Are they preparing the ground for alien arrivals? Do entering cultists indicate next alien targets? What if I keep my ground vehicles and station them near temples so that they intercept all leaving cultist vehicles?