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[PrejudiceSucks]

Yeah, I sometimes have a problem with the ramp too, mostly with tanks. It's really odd and doesn't happen anywhere in particular, which makes it very annoying.

And the DOS version comes with this game. If you want to slow it down then get a program called 'Turbo' which uses a lot of CPU energy, or even better, join the Abandonia Help Squad and get the United Devices number cruncher (it has another name, but it's what it does) which does the same, but helps research into cancer too.

[dunkellic]

Originally posted by Ramidel@Mar 26 2005, 03:18 AM
This has probably been answered somewhere in the miles of pages, but where can I get the DOS version?

The windows version runs -way- too fast on my computer.

page 52 first post

All is quiet in the American front... UNTIL...

man this game has a way of kicking the difficulty up in a second. My latest campaign is going pretty well, I have a well organized weapons/corpses traffiking ring that keeps my bases well equiped, my people ALL have personal armour and the great Laser Rifles, and I usually keep a rocket tank in every Sky Rangers to "flush out" the aliens. In the latest terror attacks I lost no soldiers. Why, I have even captured a leader allready! (with a Stunrod, too. Floater drooped like a ton of bricks, heh).

And SUDDENLY, China surrenders to the Alien menace, and 4 VERY LARGE crafts come out of nowhere and ALL LAND in USA! My 3 bases are scrambling their Sky Rangers to the sites as I write this (leaving Europe and Asia unprotected), while my suddenly diminished air force (lost 2 interceptors, bravely trying to oppose the monster's ships) patrol overhead, I can only imagine the pilots frustration, knowing that there is a full scale invasion going on and their interceptors can't to a damn thing about it.

So this is time to ask for some strategic help. I am only starting to build the, uh, thingy that lets me know what the alien missions are, so I am in the dark. All i know is 4 very large (battleships?) crafts have landed in my biggest contributor backyard! there is no way I can hit all of them, having only 3 Sky Rangers. I saved just before it happened, too, seeing as it was all pretty quiet.. Could they ALL or more than one be infiltrators? if so, I am very much screwed I think. What to do, what to do....

[axident]

Originally posted by Juan Rayo@Mar 27 2005, 01:24 AM
All is quiet in the American front... UNTIL...

man this game has a way of kicking the difficulty up in a second. My latest campaign is going pretty well, I have a well organized weapons/corpses traffiking ring that keeps my bases well equiped, my people ALL have personal armour and the great Laser Rifles, and I usually keep a rocket tank in every Sky Rangers to "flush out" the aliens. In the latest terror attacks I lost no soldiers. Why, I have even captured a leader allready! (with a Stunrod, too. Floater drooped like a ton of bricks, heh).

And SUDDENLY, China surrenders to the Alien menace, and 4 VERY LARGE crafts come out of nowhere and ALL LAND in USA! My 3 bases are scrambling their Sky Rangers to the sites as I write this (leaving Europe and Asia unprotected), while my suddenly diminished air force (lost 2 interceptors, bravely trying to oppose the monster's ships) patrol overhead, I can only imagine the pilots frustration, knowing that there is a full scale invasion going on and their interceptors can't to a damn thing about it.

So this is time to ask for some strategic help. I am only starting to build the, uh, thingy that lets me know what the alien missions are, so I am in the dark. All i know is 4 very large (battleships?) crafts have landed in my biggest contributor backyard! there is no way I can hit all of them, having only 3 Sky Rangers. I saved just before it happened, too, seeing as it was all pretty quiet.. Could they ALL or more than one be infiltrators? if so, I am very much screwed I think. What to do, what to do....

That stuff happens every once in a while.. in my last Superhuman game, I lost three countries even WITH Hyperwave. I'm still not sure what happened; I guess a craft slipped by the cracks of my 8 Hyperwaves.

My advice: don't sweat losing countries.

Try not to lose too many countries, but I lost USA, UK, and one other one that I forgot.. France or something, but I had so many engineers cranking out so many laser cannons for sale that I hardly noticed. You can't let too many countries turn on you, or the XCOM project will shut down no matter how many tens or hundreds of millions you have generated from your legion of engineers. But you CAN win despite losing several XCOM sponsors.

Try to gang up on battleships with at least two Firestorms+Plasma Beams. Don't attack battleships with anything less than a Firestorm. Four Firestorms can quickly rip apart a Battleship and suffer only a few days' worth of repairs. You could take out a Battleship with one Firestorm if need be, but it'll probably be in the repair shop for a couple of weeks.

As for the interim missions, it's not that bad to fight Battleships that were not shot down. Just camp the gravlift and there will soon be a pile of alien bodies just outside the UFO doors. The goodies you get from those undamaged-battleship missions should ease the pain if you really do lose a country's funding.

Anyway, get Hyperwave ASAP. Run around a corner right into the chest of a navigator holding a stun bomb launcher and hopefully it stuns both of you with reaction fire. Use stun rods to beat up Panicked aliens. Do whatever. Just get it.

What you want to do is to have at least one (preferably two) Firestorm(s) per base armed with 2 Plasma Beams. For your third hangar, either have a Skyranger (or Avenger if you have tons of Elerium) or have another Firestorm (or even an interceptor for local patrols, if you're running low on Elerium) with laser cannons to chase down smaller UFOs without destroying their Elerium-containing engines; that will allow you to get more Elerium 115 to convert to more power/flying suits and plasma beams, as well as ensure that you have enough fuel for your fleet of Firestorms.

Thanks, I guess I really shouldn't worry too much about loosing countries... it just feels... wrong. After all, my second base is in there!

I am actually building the Hyperwaves in every base, but they are still some 20 days from completing them. Odly enough, the fact that it STILL happened to someone even with 8 Hyperwaves kinda makes me feel better :whistle:

I guess you are right, there are enough med students in the world to buy alien corpses it seems (at $20,000 each) and enough demand for my very finely made Laser Rifles to keep me going, even if I loose the USA. and If they get a base there, well, it would be close enough to AmeriCOM so I can shoot down their suply ships! So I can maybe turn this to my favor...

[another_guest]

Originally posted by Juan Rayo@Mar 27 2005, 05:11 AM
... even if I loose the USA. and If they get a base there, well, it would be close enough to AmeriCOM so I can shoot down their suply ships! So I can maybe turn this to my favor...

I've always had the impression the alien bases are always (meaning: even if you start a new game) at the same locations.
What I don't know is how many alien bases there are at the start, whether they're building more in the course of time, or if they just stick to the bases they started with?
What I mean is, I wouldn't know if they build any bases in countries they've "conquered".

[PrejudiceSucks]

Alien bases are always in the same place, but appear at different times. If you know where one usually is, fly an empty Skyranger into the area and sometimes the purple square will come up. At this point, get a strike team together, because the aliens will get many points from having a base on earth.

I can only remember where a couple are and that is - Madagaskar (Island to the east of the African mainland) and one very close to the Russian border, about 800 km east of it and on the north tip.

Another tactic is to let the base stay and shoot down the Supply Ships carefully with an interceptor with 2 plasma cannons (damageless to the interceptor and no elerium needed to power it - works on Terror Ships too) and then kill off all of the aliens for a lot of Elerium + Alloys + Corpses and Weapons.

I personally do that a couple of times so that I get loads of Elerium, and then just attack the base before it starts sending out Terror Ships etc.

[axident]

Originally posted by another_guest+Mar 27 2005, 08:04 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (another_guest @ Mar 27 2005, 08:04 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Juan Rayo@Mar 27 2005, 05:11 AM
... even if I loose the USA.* and If they get a base there, well, it would be close enough to AmeriCOM so I can shoot down their suply ships! So I can maybe turn this to my favor...

I've always had the impression the alien bases are always (meaning: even if you start a new game) at the same locations.
What I don't know is how many alien bases there are at the start, whether they're building more in the course of time, or if they just stick to the bases they started with?
What I mean is, I wouldn't know if they build any bases in countries they've "conquered". [/b][/quote]
I don't know if they're static or not, but in my last game, it took me a while to get Psi Labs without which I refused to assault several Sectoid bases: one in the Arctic circle, one on Cuba or one of those islands nearby, one in Siberia north of China, and one on an island south of New Zealand or something. There have also been bases in Europe and in the USA before. I shot down and assaulted so many supply UFOs and took out some Snakeman bases that despite the large number of alien bases, I still got extremely positive scores each month. You get points just for shooting down UFOs, and I think you get penalized for not visiting crash sites, so sometimes I would shoot down an Ethereal UFO, send a crew over, then take off immediately to get zero points.

Anyway, like I posted a while back, alien bases aren't hard if you just gather your troops in the green rooms and camp the grav lift, waiting for aliens to go to you. This doesn't work if you don't have psi-resistant soldiers and they are fighting Sectoids and Ethereals, hence my avoidance of those Sectoid bases until I could assemble a large squad of psi-resistant soldiers.

Periodically check the UFO Activity graphs to see if there are any spikes; if there are spikes in a region, send a Skyranger to patrol that region for several hours to find the alien base(s).

But so what if you lose some points for alien bases? XCOM sponsors only pay something like 6 million at first, and even if they keep raising it by a million per month, selling alien alloys, corpses, etc. nets you way more in all but the first month or two. And once you get a few hundred engineers and sell laser cannons (or laser rifles or medikits if you haven't gotten laser cannon tech), the cash flow from XCOM sponsors will be almost irrelevant.

Plus, you need to stun an alien Commander at some point, so you HAVE to let the aliens have at least one base.

[another_guest]

** Warning: contains spoiler **

Two other locations of alien bases I remember: North Pole, North Africa (not sure which country, maybe Lybia)

[lethe]

Heck, I don't even bother doing base raids, unless I need elerium. Will only cause retaliation. You can easily compensate it by doing some missions (both points and elerium) on large or if you're lucky very large ship missions, as long as your team is well trained and equipped (laser rifles are not good equipment Juan). Make sure you have heavy plasmas, medikits for the whole team, flying suits, alien grenades, proximity grenades, small launchers, psi-amps and even a tank will be helpful.

Don't bother about losing countries too, get 2 bases manufacturing alien alloys and medikits at high scale and money won't be a problem. As long as you have at least 1 country running, it's all good.


Tip for very large ships: make a hole at the top level of the ufo in the corridor zone with the launcher and get half your crew in there, while the other half is watching the lift and making sure no one is outside.

exception for the tip: if you try this with a poorly trained team and the ship has ethereals, say bye bye to half of your crew.