(Mail) End of article 18160 (of 18739)--what next? [npq] 18160 Article 18160 (185 more) in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic: From: Christopher D. Croad Subject: HERE IS THE XCOM FAQ Nntp-Posting-Host: fester.se.rl.af.mil Organization: Rome Laboratory USAF X-Newsreader: VersaTerm Link v1.1.1 Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 11:57:00 GMT Lines: 591 Here's the FAQ everyone's been asking for... Enjoy.... (P.S. I didn't write it..got it off this newsgroup a couple of months ago SO DON'T ASK ME ANYTHING!! :-) ) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- UFO - Enemy Unknown : the FAQ! (version 1.2) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have added some more stats and some more contributions. Feel free to send any new additions by e-mail to me (tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk) or Paul James (prj91@ecs.soton.ac.uk) and they'll be worked in. Anything welcome! Tim -------------------------------------------------------------------------- *SPOILER ALERT* This FAQ conatins info that you may prefer to find out by exploring and researching yourself. If you want to play the game "in the dark" then read on with care or not at all!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- General 1a What is UFO : Enemy Unknown? 1b What spec PC do I need to run it? 1c Is there a patch available? 1d Can the save games be hacked? Game Info 2a Base facilities 2b Non-combat equipment 2c Ship types 2d Ship weapons 2e Soldier weaponry 2f Alien races 2g Alien missions 2h Manufacturing costs Questions (this is a FAQ after all :) 3a Overall strategy 3b Combat questions 3c Miscellaneous --------------------------- GENERAL ------------------------------------- 1a What is UFO : Enemy Unknown? The game places you in charge of X-Com in the year 1999; alien UFO's have been sighted around the globe and your newly set up organization has been charged with intercepting them, recovering any alien artefacts, and finding out where the aliens are coming from and what they are after. The strategic level is centered on a screen with a rotatable/zoomable 3D globe, with buttons to manipulate your bases, check UFO activity, check your funding levels from the 15 sponsoring nations, and to look up data in your online ufopedia. At the tactical level you control troops/tanks in a 3D combat mini-game which is quite similar in appearance to Ultima 7/8. 1b What spec PC do I need to run it? According to the box, you need a 386+, 20Mhz+, 2Mb RAM+ and a mouse; on a 486/DX33 with 8Mb RAM, mouse and 8-bit soundblaster it is pretty slick. Base memory requirement is listed as 560K, with 1Mb EMS/XMS also required. It comes on only 3 disks, and occupies about 13Mb of hard disk (including the saved games). The copy protection is a code at the bottom of each odd-numbered page of the quite well written 128-page manual. The manual supplement does *not* guarantee that the game will work with DR DOS, Novell DOS7 or OS/2. 1c Patches Microprose have released a patch to bring UFO up to version 1.2; the patch is now available at wuarchive.wustl.edu pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS/ufo1-2.zip ftp.uml.edu msdos/Games/Patches/ufo1-2.zip (or try /pub) This is an upload of a patch received in the post direct from Microprose. The correct patch file size should be 634063 bytes. The patch readme file lists the following points: * Please start a new game to eliminate all possibilities that the new version of the game fixes the bugs which you have seen so far. * This update contains a new version of the DOS Extender, DOS4GW to fix some compatibility problems seen with the earlier release. DOS4GW is not a MicroProse program and we were not aware of these compatibility problems until after UFO was published. If you had a problem running UFO, this update will fix that. * Corrupt tiles that caused multiple images to appear have been fixed. * Action points have been limited to 80 to prevent the "wrap-around" problem seen with the original release. * Mission variety has been improved to allow access to all types of missions when playing. * Alien intelligence has been improved to allow a tougher game. * UFO encyclopedia has been expanded to include missing entries. * The corrupt game file, UBASE_07.MAP which caused problems when entering the Alien Bases has been replaced. * There is no PC Speaker support within UFO. * The Environment Space error has been fixed. It doesn't seem to be necessary to start a new game after applying the patch; the old save files still work, though the soldier stat screens can look messy. You'll also miss a few ufopedia entries. The aliens in version 1.2 do appear to shoot back a lot more than before, and often have much better weaponry. Your base(s) come under attack earlier too (which in a way helps as you get some artefacts if you win!) 1d Editing the save games The format of soldier.dat (which holds your troop stats) appears to be like this, with 72 bytes making up each soldier: Byte What it does 9 Number of missions 11 Number of kills 13 Number of days till healed 17-29 Name (may be longer, not positive) 43 Initial Tu's 44 Initial Health 45 Initial Stamina 46 Initial Reactions 47 Initial Strength 48 Initial Firing Accuracy 49 Initial Throwing Accuracy 50 Unknown 51 PSI Strength 52 PSI Skill 53 Unknown 54 TU's gained 55 Health gained 56 Stamina gained 57 Reaction gained 58 Strength gained 59 Firing Accuracy gained A couple of people are working on neat save file editors which will hopefully be available one day soon for those who don't like hex editors! --------------------------- GAME INFO ---------------------------------- As you research more tech, your on-line UFOPEDIA will have more information added automatically. None of this is included in the game manual; some of the info here might be spoiler(s). 2a Base Facilities You can have up to 8 bases around the world. There are 36 (6x6) locations to place rooms in. Only the hanger takes up more than one location (2x2). Days Build Cost Cost/month Access Lift 1 300k 4k (Entrance to underground base) Living Quarters 16 400k 10k (Sleeps 50) Laboratory 26 750k 30k (Allows 50 research) Workshop 32 800k 35k (Allows 50 manufacture) Small Radar 12 500k 10k (300nm range, 5% detect/10mins) Large Radar 25 800k 15k (450nm range, 5% detect/10mins) General Stores 10 150k 5k (Holds 50 units of equipment) Alien Containment 18 500k 15k (Holds 10(?) live aliens) Hanger 25 200k 25k (Repairs/refuels/rearms 1 plane) Laser Defence 24 900k 10k (Def value 600, Accuracy 60%) Plasma Defence 36 1200k 12k (Def value 900, Accuracy 70%) Fusion Ball 36 1800k 14k (Def value 1200, Accuracy 80%) Grav Shield 38 2300k 15k (Gives defences an extra shot) Mind Shield 33 1300k 5k (Helps stop aliens finding base) Psi Lab 24 750k 16k (For troop psionics training) Hyperwave Decoder 26 2000k 30k (To evaluate alien missions) To dismantle a base, you must remove all facilities (which means transferring all people and equipment elsewhere if needbe) then finally remove the access lift itself. 2b Non-combat equipment Most of this you need to research, some you get at the start. Motion scanner - detects movement in the near vacinity Medikit - heals fatal wounds (heal), revives unconscious soldiers (stimulate) and boosts morale (painkiller) Stun rod - has a chance to render an alien unconscious Electro flare - essential for night time operations. Thrown. Elerium 115 - only found on alien ships/bases, and needed for many important weapons and power units. Mind probe - when used on an alien tells you his stats and rank (useful to find an alien commander or leader). Psi amp - required to allow soldier to use psionic attacks on aliens (attempting to cause panic or get mind control). 2c Ship types The XCom craft at your disposal throughout the game are: Max Weapon Hull Max Speed Acceln Fuel Pods Damage Cargo HWPs Skyranger 760 2 2000 0 150 14 3 Interceptor 2100 3 1000 2 100 0 0 Lightning 3100 8 30(E) 1 800 12 0 Firestorm 4200 9 20(E) 2 500 0 0 Avenger 5400 10 60(E) 2 1200 26 4 The firestorm is the new fighter craft you can research, lightning the new fighter transport and the avenger is the ultimate craft. (E)=Elerium fuel. The UFOs are as follows (from interogated alien navigators): Max Hull Weapon Max Ship Speed Damage Power Range Crew Width Small Scout 2200 50 0 0 1 3 Like an Apollo capsule Medium Scout 2400 200 20 120 6 9 1 level, small square Large Scout 2700 250 20 272 ? Harvester 4000 500 40 176 ? 16 3 levels, 11 windows Terror Ship 4800 1200 120 336 ? 30 2 levels, narrow top Supply Ship 3200 2200 60 288 ? 30 3 levels, wide middle Battleship 5000 3000 140 520 ? 30 3 levels, no windows Abductor 4300 500 40 160 ? Any observations on maximum (or minimum) crew figures would be welcomed, as these would probably help on missions. To see a picture of the UFO in flight just click on the UFO icon on the airborne combat display. To keep tracking the UFO until it is over land you can minimise the airborne combat window to an icon (making sure you are in "standoff" mode :) and then accelerate time to 1-min slices; when you're over land open the window and shoot! 2d Ship weapons You initially start with cannon/stingray/avalanche missiles, but you can research more stuff: Damage Range Accuracy Reload time Cannon 10 10 10% 2s Stingray 70 30 70% 15s Avalanche 100 60 100% 20s Laser Cannon 70 21 70% 4s Plasma Beam 140 52 140% 6s (uses Elerium) Fusion Ball 230 65 230% 25s It is important to match the weapon to the target as usually you want to force the alien to land (preferably intact) to be able to recover artefacts and prisoners on the ground. If you intercept over the sea, it doesn't really matter though. 2e Soldier weapons Your soldiers can be equipped with a hue arsenal of weaponry; either by equipping their transport ship, or in the case of a base defence when the attack starts. Many weapons can be loaded with different ammo types. Aimed Snap Auto Dam Type Dam Type Dam Type Pistol 78/30 60/18 26 AP Rifle 110/80 60/25 35/35 30 AP Heavy Cannon 90/80 60/33 56 AP 52 HE 60 I Auto Cannon 82/80 56/33 32/40 42 AP 44 HE 48 I Rocket Launcher 115/75 55/45 75 HE 100 HE 90 I Laser Pistol 68/55 40/20 28/25 46 Laser Laser Rifle 100/50 65/25 46/34 60 Laser Heavy Laser 84/75 50/33 85 Laser Grenade 50 HE Smoke Grenade 60 HE Proximity Grenade 70 HE High Explosive 110 HE Heavy Plasma 110/60 75/30 50/35 115 Plasma Plasma Pistol 85/60 65/30 50/30 52 Plasma Plasma Rifle 100/60 86/30 55/63 80 Plasma Blaster Launcher 120/80 200 HE Small Launcher 110/75 65/40 90 Stun Alien Grenade 90 HE (AP = Armour piercing HE = High Explosive I = Incendiary) The pairs of numbers indicate accuracy and TU cost to shoot. Note that the TU cost is always a percentage of the soldier's total TUs, not a fixed amount. Accuracy for two-handed weapons is improved if one hand is empty, and overall accuracy is better if the soldier is kneeling. The autofire option gives you three shots, but these are the least accurate (they are effective with area effect weapons like autocannon). Grenades are thrown, and the accuracy of where it lands is based on the soldier's own throwing accuracy stat. Many people suggest that the laser rifle is the best overall weapon; cheap to produce, rapid fire rate, quite accurate and doesn't use Elerium. 2e Alien types Attacks with Resists Weakness Notes Sectiod Weapons & Psi Likes cattle abduction Snakemen Weapons fire/heat Carries up to 50 eggs Ethereal Weapons & Psi Physically weak/blind Muton Weapons AP Strong & intelligent Floater Weapons Likes terrorising Celatoid Venom Silacoid HTH fire/incend Works with mutons Cryssalid HTH HE Turns humans to zombies Reaper HTH incend Two brains and hearts Sectopod Weapons plasma laser Highly armoured Cyberdisc Weapons explosives Works with sectoids Zombie HTH Dies -> Cryssalid You can get info on particular alien stats by using a mind probe on them. From doing this it seems average stats on aliens are as follows. Some of the stats vary a lot between the races! ----- Armour ------ TUs Ene Hea Bra Mor Rea Fir Thr Str PSt PSk Fro Lef Rig Rea Und Sectoid 55 90 30 80 100 65 30 60 30 - - 2 1 1 1 1 Ethereal 70 100 60 80 100 75 40 80 50 50 40 17 17 17 17 16 Snakeman 40 80 45 80 100 45 30 65 50 - - 10 9 9 8 6 Muton 58 90 90 80 100 60 30 60 70 - - 10 10 10 10 5 Floater 50 90 35 80 100 50 25 60 40 - - 4 3 3 2 6 Celatoid ?? Silacoid 40 80 115 100 100 40 0 0 70 - - 25 25 25 25 5 Cryssalid 110 140 95 100 100 70 0 0 110 - - 17 17 17 17 17 Reaper ?? Sectopod 60 90 95 110 100 65 30 0 90 - - 70 65 65 50 45 Cyberdisc 60 90 120 110 100 65 30 0 90 - - 17 17 17 17 17 Zombie 40 110 85 110 100 40 0 0 85 - - 4 4 4 4 4 Leaders tend to have slightly higher stats than other ranks in each race, for example an ethereal leader has 20-rated armour all round and a psionic strength of 60. The high TUs on cryssalids allows them to move a long way and often surprise troops from behind, turning them to zombies before you can react. When killed, zombies shed their skins to become new cryssalids. 2f Alien Missions There are many mission types. The nasty ones are terror and infiltration. Supply is handy because it can lead you to an alien base, and in turn to an alien leader. Research: Small vehicles, least threat to earth and Xcom Harvest: Any size ships, great concern to governments Abduction: Causes great alarm Infiltration: Make pact with earth govt, greatest threat to Xcom Base: Build alien base (you need to let them build one to win game) Terror: Causes hysteria, troubles govts Retaliation: Attack Xcom base Supply: Supply alien base A hyperwave decoder is very handy to work out mission types. Later in the game you are probably safe to leave ships on research missions alone and concentrate on the dangerous ones. 2h Manufacturing Costs This chart shows which items need alien alloys and Elerium for production; all of them need to be researched. You could use the info to work out which item is best to produce for profit if your engineers are idle ... (an initial glance suggests personal armour is good if you have the alloys to spare, or power suits if you have Elerium coming out your ears too :) Engineer Workshop Alien Sale Hours Cost Space Elerium Alloys Price Motion scanner 220 34k 4 - - 45600 Medikit 420 28k 4 - - 46500 Psi amp 500 160k 4 1 - 194700 Personal armour 800 22k 12 - 4 140000 Power suit 1000 42k 16 5 5 310000 Flying suit 1400 58k 16 16 5 420000 Alien alloys 100 3k 10 - - 6500 Elerium-115 - - - - - 5000 Laser pistol 300 8k 2 - - 20000 Laser rifle 400 20k 3 - - 36900 Heavy laser 700 32k 4 - - 61000 Plasma pistol 600 56k 3 - 1 84000 Plasma pistol clip 60 2k 4 1 - 4440 Plasma rifle 820 88k 4 - 1 126500 Plasma rifle clip 80 3k 4 2 - 6290 Heavy plasma 1000 122k 4 - 1 171600 Heavy plasma clip 80 6k 4 3 - 9590 Blaster launcher 1200 90k 5 - 1 144000 Blaster bomb 220 8k 3 3 - 17028 Small launcher 900 78k 3 - 1 120000 Stun bomb 200 7k 2 1 - 15200 Alien grenade 200 6.7k 2 2 - 14850 Mind probe 1200 262k 4 1 - 334000 FIRESTORM 14000 400k 30 - 65 - LIGHTNING 18000 600k 34 - 85 - AVENGER 34000 900k 36 - 170 - UFO power source 1400 130k 22 16 5 250000 UFO navigation 1600 150k 18 - 3 80000 Fusion ball l'cher 400 242k 6 - - 281100 Fusion ball 600 28k 6 4 - 53300 Laser cannon 300 182k 6 - - ? Plasma beam 500 226k 8 15 - 267300 Tank/laser cannon 1200 500k 25 - - ? Hovertank/plasma 1200 850k 30 30 5 980000 Hovertank/launcher 1400 900k 30 25 8 1043000 HWP fusion bomb 400 15k 25 5 8 31500 (The three aircraft all need 1 UFO power source + 1 UFO navigation unit, except the AVENGER which needs two UFO power sources). Clearly you should never sell Elerium for cash. You'd be much better off making either power armour or flying suits and selling that. ----------------- GAME TACTICS/STRATEGY ---------------------------------- 3a Overall strategy Where should I build bases? Build a few bases at the start, make sure they all have long range radar. Spread them around the globe; you only get 8; note the groupings of the richer funding countries and defend them early on. You can also build bases on both poles. The following eight locations have been suggested to maximise radar coverage of the globe: i) North Pole ii) South Pole iii) Southern California iv) Persian Gulf v) North-eastern Australia vi) Right most tip of South America (Brazil??) vii) Europe viii) right most Russia (near japan??) How can I make money? The main income at the start is from the funding countries, so you should maximise your efforts to win their favours early on. As the game progresses you can sell off artefacts for cash. If you set up workshops and have engineers with nothing to do have them make something like laser weapons and sell them; you can sell for more than it costs to make them. Why is Elerium important? Elerium is only found on alien ships; you can't make it yourself (you can make alien alloys). If you are running short of elerium use interceptors with laser weapons from multiple bases and give your troops laser rifles (laser rifles are very effective in any case). If you feel confident let the aliens attack your base, you can get lots (sometimes 1000+, on one occasion 3000+) elerium in a single battle. How do I win the game? The ultimate aim of UFO is to research (interogate) live aliens to find out where they are coming from and why. The best prisoner you can get is an alien commander; there should be one in an alien base. Once you interogate a commander you should get a big clue as to how to win the battle once and for all! What should I research? To find out about ship stats research alien engineers, to find out about missions research navigator. To find out about Psi research ethereals (and maybe sectoids) To find out about armour research alien alloys. To get new ships research UFO power source, UFO navigation, Elerium & UFO construction. It should be possible to build an "advances tree" similar to the one that is available for Civilisation; hopefully one coming soon! Don't research the same thing at different bases, there is no benefit; the research is independent at each base (as is manufacturing). Why do I never see any large UFOs? On missions like retaliation, base and terror, small ships scout before the larger ships come in. If you destroy the scouts no larger ships will appear. It is thus important to let them land! (else you'll have a long game :) By using the hyperwave decoder you can detect the alien mission; it can pay off to let aliens build a base so you can capture one of their leaders for interogation. 3b Ground combat questions Who/what should I take on missions? A nice combo on a Skyranger is a couple of tanks and 6 troops; the hovering plasma tanks are particularly effective. Tanks lose out as they cannot enter most alien ships (terror ships being an exception). Tanks can be left in bases to defend them from alien attacks. Flying suits give your troops a lot of versatility and save a lot of TUs in many terrain types. If a soldier dies though you lose the armour (but keep his other equipment if you win the battle). Try to always take a couple of rookies along to give them experience to boost their stats. On night missions always carry electro flares. Medikits are important as in addition to healing fatal wounds they can raise morale if used on panicing troops. Why do I lose ammo that I never use? After combat all clips loaded in weapons are lost, whether or not they have been used (not a great piece of design!). Thus you should unload any weapons that uses valuable ammo before the battle ends. To unload click on the weapon over the "rifle" icon on the soldier's equipment screen (this can also be used to select alternate ammo before battle). Why should I need grenades when I have autocannon? An autocannon has very impressive firepower. However it is very heavy to carry, and can reduce a soldier's TU total. A soldier equipped with a laser rifle can carry a couple of grenades and use them to flatten small buildings or other targets without needing a bulky cannon. How can I fire on aliens in their movement phase? You can carry out opportunity fire on aliens as they make their moves. To do this, leave enough TU's after your move for at least a snap shot, then if your trooper sees an alien and has good enough reactions (s)he will automatically fire on the alien. You can use the 4 icons near the bottom left of the screen in your movement phase to reserve the TUs. What's with troops missing in action (MIA)? If one of your troopers in under alien control at the end of a battle (s)he counts as MIA; therefore try to wait until (s)he is no longer in control before finishing off aliens. Troops unconscious when the battle ends seem to survive. How do I open spaceship doors? Simply target your soldier to move to the "square" behind the door and (s)he will then automatically open it (using some TUs). It's wise not to open doors without plenty of spare TU's or without using a motion scanner first. How do I counter psi attacks? Ethereal and sectoid races have psionic abilities. This means they are able to amke a number of psionic attacks on your troops for which they do not need line-of-sight on the target. There are two types of attack: Panic - if your trooper succumbs (s)he will panic, possibly dropping equipment and then running, possibly also going beserk. Control - potentially worse; aliens can control targets, thus getting your troops to fire on each other. The effect is usually temporary, and can be reduced in effect by not bunching potential victims too close together. When you research psionics and build psi labs, you can evaluate each soldier's resistance to psi attacks (his/her psi strength) and train them in psi skills (which allows your troops to make psionic attacks if they have a psi amp on them in battle). Yes, you can leave troops in the transport and use HWP's to scout for aliens to attack with psionics! Psi skills can be trained, psi strength is constant, so don't waste time on psi training troops with low psi strength. Psi training allocations happen at the end of each month at bases that have psi labs. 3c Miscellaneous Why do my soldiers rarely get promoted? To have promotions after battle you need to have a certain number of troops around all your bases for the promotion to be possible. This little charts sums it up: Rank Sergeant Captain Colonel Commander Troops needed 5 11 23 30 There can be only one commander. So if you have 35 troops around the globe in theory you should have 1 commander, 1 colonel, 3 captains, 7 sergeants and 23 rookies/squaddies. What is the Microprose helpline number? In the UK (where the first release was made) the number is 0454 329510 and is open Mon-Fri 2-5pm. Or you can fax on 0454 329507 from 9am-5pm. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- END **************************** Christopher D. Croad croadc@venus.se.rl.af.mil (Weekdays) croadc@delphi.com (Weekends) Leaders allow you to research 'The Martian Solution'. Commanders will let research 'Cydonia or Bust' You need both of these advances in order to win the game. (Note: Commanders will also let you research Martian Solution, so don't interrogate your Commanders until after researching Martian Solution, since Commanders are a pain to acquire sometimes.) If I might add to this...before you can research TMS, you need to have researched Alien Origins. Thus, *don't* interrogate the *leader* before researching Alien Origins...you'll just waste a good leader. It would be understandable, though, if he's a sectoid leader... :) ------- : > a B. Launcher and 3 bombs. I fire one, then I can't reload it! Is this a : > bug, a feature, or am I doing something wrong? What I do now is load : > soldiers with one only, fire it, then drop it and switch to the weapon in : > the soldier's backpack. : Unload the empty, stuck shell casing. There is an "unload" button : on the equipment screen. Just pick up the BL and click it on the : unload button with your other hand free. : Does not happen often. Don't load the Blaster Launcher before the combat starts. Load it during combat. Won't happen then I don't think... I always load all BLs in the craft before combat starts. In two full games, I have had maybe two stuck casings. This is with XCOM, which is at the 1.2 level. ------- TO crack X-COM, use a hex editor on the GEOSCAPE.EXE file. Search for 7C 14 83 and replace it with EB 2B 83 Back up GEOSCAPE.EXE in case you have a different version. Also, the FTP address for Romulus is FTP.UWP.EDU. The files are in /pub/games/romulus. ------- it's the famous eighty-item limit. If you have eighty heavy plasmas, eighty heavy plasma clips, a hundred and seventy-one blaster launchers, and four hundred and three blaster bombs, when your base is invaded, you'll have eighty heavy plasmas available to you...but no clips, no blaster launchers, and no bombs. If you _must_ keep tons of weaponry around, keep it in a base away from your troopers' headquarters. You hit the 80 item limit for the base. If you want to use your neat toys, be ruthless and sell everything you do not need for base defense. I do not keep more than 16 heavy plasmas and clips, and only 2 extra BLs. If you do not want to fight with it, sell it! Also, if you design a nifty base with only one room attached to the access lift, you may well need a BL to "connect" it to the rest of the base. It is the only weapon I have found that will blow holes through dirt, and on my last base defense I had two rooms between my troops and the hangers/access lift that were not connected. ------- >Anyways is there a fix for the "Green Bug", hex dump to the screen in large >green characters? No fix yet, but it's easy to avoid! I know of two ways of provoking this (you seem to have hit both!) 1. Never enter ground combat while you are working with other interceptions (ie don't have any iconified planes and enter ground combat). 2. If more than one building will be finished at the same time (at the same base, possibly it may also need to bet the same kind of building) DON'T remove one of them and leave the others (this is easier to fix, just restore from a savegame and remove the not yet finished building). -- 2) The Green Text Bug A common bug, I've seen many posts here, but just to re-iterate. If you have an air combat window minimized while you go into a ground combat mission, leaving the ground combat mission will spit out a pile o' green text errors in 40 col. mode, and kick you backed to your last save game. The work around for this is to make sure that you have no air combats minimized when you go to ground combat. This bug is a real pain. ------- Forget taking Chryssalids alive. You don't learn anything from the sci-boys that you don't already know. I'd use grenades to make real sure that downed chryssalids stay that way. I hate those damn things. ------- ALIEN CONTAINMENT BUG Try capturing a commander from an enemy battleship, as opposed to an enemy base. I think this might be a way around the bug. -- BTW, I was suffering from the "alien containment" bug. Apparently if you pick up an alien that you still "need" you get to keep it. Even though the game (because of the bug) told me the alien died, it actually turned up in my lab ready for research. One strange thing that happens when I transfer these "bugged" aliens their name is left out of the description in the transfer information box. I am told stuff arrived at a base, but not what it is. It does not seem to affect gameplay, but I _do_ save often when that stuff is going on... -- This bug drove me nuts! Don't worry - if you capture an alien that you have not researched before (and therefore need for the game), even though the game says he died he'll be there. Say you get a commander and you get the "Alien died..." screen. If check the research screen on the base and use start new project, the little bugger will be in there... ------- >do i need a sectoid leader to get psi? For the 1,000,000,000th time... :) To get psi, you need: a) A sectoid leader b) A sectoid commander c) Any Ethereal A muton, snakeman, or floater leader/commander will *not* give you the psi research paths. ------- >Yo! Is there a way to transfer equipment between two soldiers without having >to drop something, move off the square, let another dude move there and grab >it? Yes, THROW it over. Don't worry, throwing a heavy plasma gun onto your buddy's head will not knock him unconscious. Primed grenades, however, should not be transfered in this manner. ------- > What weapons blow holes in buildings? Ordinary grenades blow holes in adjacent stone walls or several wooden walls (interior walls in most houses, some exterior walls in stables and second floor of barns). They won't hurt any ufo walls. Autocannons won't hurt stone walls, but will hurt wooden walls and some roofs. They doesn't harm stone fences either. Rocket launchers take out some stone walls and great parts of roofs. Won't hurt ufo walls though. Alien grenades will take out several stone walls, and part of the floor (and a big part of the roof), but might not hurt ufo walls. Laser rifles will take out most terran walls, sooner or later. I'm pretty certain they won't hurt ufo walls. Heavy plasmas holes all terran walls in one shot (in my experience) and have a small chance of piercing an interior ufo wall or interior ufo door. Blaster launchers take out large pieces of terran real estate, adjascent ufo exterior walls and several ufo interior walls, roofs and floors. They seem to have an easier time piercing the overhang on battleships than they have piercing the outer hull on any ufo, so it seems like the overhang is treated as an ordinary ufo interior floor? ------- > I now have researched Cydonia or Bust, and am wondering when I get to go - > does it come up at the end of a month like PSI training? Nope - just select an Avenger, and when it asks for the target, click on the Cydonia button. ------- WHEN YOU WANT TO RESEARCH ALIENS, DO SO IN THIS ORDER: a) *Any* live alien, *other* than leaders or commanders. b) Alien Origins c) *Any* alien *leader* d) The Martian Solution e) *Any* alien *commander* f) Cydonia or Bust. If you *haven't* researched (for example) item b), *DO* *NOT* *EVEN* *CONTEMPLATE* researching an alien leader. In other words, you *must* research b) before c), c) before d), etc. To do otherwise is to WASTE a PERFECTLY GOOD LEADER/COMMANDER. ------- >>How do you recognize a alien commander from a regular grunt? > You can read their insignia when they are stunned. Just stand over them and look at the ground inventory screen. If it's not a commander, just prime a grenade and leave it with them so they don't wake up. ------- 1) Cydonia is mind-control city. Don't bring along anyone "wet" unless they are armed with nothing more dangerous than a medikit. 2) Blast all the pyramids. Twice. Three times is better. 3) Use flares for the Martian landscape. 4) Unload all the clips before using the elevator down. Take 2-3 tanks into the final battle, as they can't be controlled and are useful to scout out alien positions in the long corridors. ------- > 1) How do I capture alien ships intact without having to fire at them? I always send up an unarmed troop ship and fly around after the UFO until it lands. You then get to take on a completely intact UFO + full complement of nasties. > 2) Some of my guys have pretty high Stats, but some of them also have near > zero time units, everything else being normal. What could cause them to > do that and how do I fix it? Sounds like you are trying to get the troops to carry too much. Try again with less weapons/ammo per man/lady (you can always pick stuff off the alien carcusses if you run out or leg it pack to the troopship for what you left behind). > 3) I've fought off most of aliens and am waiting to invade their home > base. I'm just twiddling my thumbs and shooting down their ships now. > What should I do next? Eventually you will slaughter some aliens and recover stun weapons, research them and their ammo and use them in your next raid. Then interegate the scumbags. ------- >What's the best way to get elerium? >V. Yuen Well, the absolute best way to get elerium assumes you have a good bit of tech, and have built Hyperwave Detectors at your bases. Ideally, you've located a floater base near one of your own. DON'T KILL IT. Just leave it... But one of the nice features of a base is that it is resupplied from time to time...and floater supply ships are true *plums*, once you have a good strategy for 'em. 150 elerium per ship, and they're not very challenging...at least, not as challenging as a battleship, say. Failing the above, the best way to GET to that point, technologically, is to NOT shoot down ships if you can avoid it. Shooting down ships usually blows up the power sources, and along with them the elerium. With a decent-sized regiment you should be able to handle just about any landed UFO, save maybe a battleship (and possibly even those). An exception: don't try to tackle etherial ships until you get PSI or lots of tech, such as blaster-launchers. :) I love floaters, though... :) ------- Don't build too many bases. You do not need to cover every single patron state. A base in Europe and a base somewhere else is enough to increase funding. ------- +That tells you if it is a soldier, commander, whatever. The alien does +NOT have to be in line-of-sight of the mind prober. For all I know, yo +could leave them on the skyranger. + Which is what you should do. Having a guy switch from weapons to Mind Probe uses valuable TU that could be used for firing/moving. Since you aren't going to fire/move at your best, you should just leave him on the transport. Otherwise, you end up spending time moving a guy who mostly just mind probes. The same thinking goes into the tactic of leaving Psi- Amp guys on the transport. ------- weapon Damage / TU Damg/TU * Accuracy dmg ---------- +--------------------+ +--------------------+ --- auto snap aimed auto snap aimed ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- --- rifle 0.86 1.2 0.375 30 72 41.25 30 laser pistol 1.84 2.3 0.84 51.52 92 57.12 46 laser 1.76 2.4 1.2 80.96 156 120 60 heavy laser *** 2.5 1.13 *** 125 94.92 85 plasma pistol 1.7 1.7 0.86 85 110.5 73.1 52 plasma rifle 2.22 2.66 1.33 122.1 228.8 133 80 heavy plasma 3.28 3.83 1.91 164 287.3 210.1 115 Well, to be more specific, how can I determine how strong a guy will be in psionic strength? I just did a game where for one month, I did nothing at all except just sit around, waiting for my guys to finish their first month in psionic training. ALl of my experienced guys had psionic strength ratings of 20 or below, while all of my new rookies who had never even KILLED a person and gone on only 3 missions had strengths of 90+. How is this possible? The last game I played, the scores ranged from 30-90, but it wasn't like this at all. Some had high, some had low, but nothing where only three guys had above 20 psionic strength. Is there any way to ensure that a person will have a high psionic strength? Is it random? If I save the game and keep re-loading before the 30th day, will the psionic strength change? I'd LIKE to get at least 40-50 for 1/2 of my guys.. ------------ The standard method seems to be: train them for a month, then sack those with PSI strength less than 50. Hire new ones, and repeat till all your men have PSI strength greater than 50. The PSI lab does not improve PSI strength; it just identifies it. So your only commander has a PSI strength of 20: Sack him. The rest of your troops will thank you, and someone more deserving will be promoted. ------------ There is no use for alien entertainment. It's another item used to waste your time instead of researching the important stuff. The Mutons can be killed with one or two heavy plasma blasts. Any weapon less than that will take a few more hits. Grenades and Prox. grenades barely have an effect on them. I've never hit one with an alien grenade. ------------ I've been playing with ASTORE.DAT and it seems to be the right file. Aliens are stored starting at offset X'0C' (12) and each alien takes up X'18' (24) bytes. The first 3 bytes are important. They are: Alien race, alien profession, unknown - probably alien containment unit # or which base the alien is at or something. The numbers are: Race: 01 - Sectoid, 02: snakeman, 03: ethereal, 04: muton, 05:floater 06: celatid, 07:silacoid, 08:chryssalid, 09:reaper, 0a:sectapod, 0b:cyberdisk Profession: 01:commander, 02:leader, 03:engineer, 04:medic, 05:navigator 06: soldier 07: terrorist Values of 00 00 mean "no alien". All other values, including 00 xx and xx 00 and values of 8 or higher for profession, or 0c or higher for race, result in rather weird errors (like an alien being classed as a Chryssalid cyberdisk or a Muton UFO Power Source). ------------ I got tired of storming UFOs. I don't have anything that will punch holes in ufo's yet and they always are waiting for me by the doors. I would normally lost 3-4 troops per landing because of this. Rookies are cheap but still.. Then I got an idea: if I'm going to lose people anyway.. why not create a walking bomb. So I have a rookie name Stooge. (I always name this rookie stooge). I give him/her no weapons. They sit back in the plane until everything is cleared out except the UFO. Then Stooge graps two grenades and mets up at the ufo front door. Next turn, Stooge primes the gernades and walks in. If Stooge gets nailed, he/she drops the gernades and the front area has been cleared. If not, he/she throws them next turn and runs out. This had made ufo storming so much easier. ------------ It takes two hands to unload a weapon with one hand empty. ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------- ------- PAGE 13 | 3994-9668 15 | 2557-8872 17 | 3123-8465 19 | 1410-1221 21 | 0922-6142 23 | 3107-6669 25 | 2509-8541 27 | 1390-6646 29 | 9830-2382 31 | 4882-7439 33 | 5540-8305 35 | 8609-7726 37 | 8689-6378 39 | 3046-0420 41 | 7291-4862 43 | 1799-5577 45 | 5569-0905 47 | 6150-6159 49 | 7311-8448 51 | 1740-8071 53 | 8579-7983 55 | 4312-7731 57 | 7857-8436 59 | 7672-7780 61 | 6465-7372 63 | 2118-6249 65 | 9128-0471 67 | 8663-6139 69 | 7464-9702 71 | 5585-6183 73 | 8470-6031 75 | 1905-9976 77 | 0915-7288 79 | 5485-6183 81 | 6370-5790 83 | 7569-8132 85 | 5248-9052 87 | 1611-2942 89 | 6633-4815 91 | 9534-7912 93 | 3297-9611 95 | 1388-9774 97 | 3260-6669 99 | 5122-8673 101| 3792-6407 103| 9637-6375 105| 3351-3557 107| 5777-6408 109| 4323-1516 111| 9785-1995