Some gameplay questions

[dfscott]

I have a handful of general questions I'm hoping I can get some answers for:

1) Is there any way to get the messages displayed during the battles to re-display?  I hate it when one of my people gets killed and the message goes by so fast I can't tell who it is.  It's mainly an issue when I'm trying to decide if the person that got killed is good enough to be worth retrying the mission.

2) Does picking up alien equipment mid-mission have any effect on the amount of material you're able to collect?  I'm at the point where I'm spending as much as the countries are giving me, so selling mission loot is my main source of income. 

3) Is there any way to make money other than money provided by countries and selling mission loot?  I know in the earlier versions, you could make stuff and sell it, but it looks like that's a break-even proposition at best in 2.3.

4) Can you halt work on a UFO disassembly the way you can halt work on research?  I just finished a UFO disassembly but my antimatter containment isn't ready yet so I lost the antimatter.  However, when I went back to a prior save and stopped the disassembly, I lost all the progress I'd made.

5) I've got tons and tons of dead aliens, but I can't figure out how to get rid of them.  I know in the original UFO, you could sell the alien corpses, but I don't see any way to do that.  Is it possible to run out of space?

[tzzimy]

Hey dfscott,
I am new here too playing this game for 2 months now but i think i can help on answering some of your questions.

1) Press the key "~" on your keyboard. It will give you a nice console-like text and you can see there message like alien or human kills, civilian casualties and more.

2) As far as I have noticed, no.
Picking it up simply means you can use it. However, my best guess is that if you use  lets say an ammo of some sort that will not be available to sell afterwards. And if I recall correctly, when i forgot a stun rod on ground to switch for a pistol during a mission, I got that back after the mission (have to recheck though and I will come back on this post).

3) Yes.
The financial support you have is adequate to hold 4 bases on the easy level (around 900,000 credits). From that point on I just sell ufo ships and all alien equipment I collect to get the additional money I need to build more bases. And believe me, at least for the easy level they are more than enough i have 7 million credits and I have built as many radars and SAMs i could . So as long as you go on missions and you manage to pick up material and sell UFO's you will be fine financially and that is your goal as income. And I know that on higher difficulty levels it is even more difficult to keep the various Countries happy so you mostly depend on these missions to get money. And unfortunately the higher difficulty level the less UFOs you spot.
As for production? I strongly doubt you will have the time to produce anything for profit since the hours spent for even electromagnetic rifle's ammunition is really a LOT. Just count on selling alien equipment, but one small advice. Keep at least one of the "unknown" flagged alien items in storage because it might be needed to trigger a research item, as soon its technological step advance is available.

4) Yes.
Make another production. You will notice on left side of the panel where you can set the number units you want to produce, two BIG arrows "up" and "down". You can use those arrows to change priority of that production. The only thing you have to do is to just press the arrow "up" to make the new production first priority, you will see that turning up first on the workshop's list and that way your ufo disassembly halts! I was lucky that my first UFO disassembly did not have any antimatter although the popup did appear (but of course it showed 0 antimatter extracted anyway).

5) There is a button to kill alive aliens on the far bottom left corner of containment screen. I think there is no limit on the amount of dead aliens you might have but that I dont know for sure.

Remember the game is still under development and its not finished yet

Hope I helped, although I am so newby here Any other more experienced guy please correct me if I was wrong on something!

Cheers,
Tzzimy

[dfscott]

Thanks, Tzzimy, that's really helpful, especially the tips about the "~" and the order of production priorities!

I'm playing on Easy right now, and it's September of the first year.  I have 3 bases (one of them is only partially functional), 4 SAM sites, and 2 UFO yards.  I was originally making money selling UFOs, but lately I've been keeping them to disassemble so maybe that's why I'm low on cash.  All my countries are "exuberant", but the salary costs still are draining my cash (I've got about 30 soldiers, 50 scientists and 40 workers).  I'm starting to run out of stuff to research, so I could probably fire some scientists and save some money.

[tzzimy]

Glad to help!!!  

Just keep selling alien material (but hold an "unknown" sample just in case you need it for research item trigger later). Store enough UFOs to fill a yard and sell the crashed ones. I have in my yard only 100% intact UFOs (mostly Harvesters but you need Scouts and Fighters for research) that I got from terror missions. All the others I just sell them for quick bucks. Try to do as many missions as you can, that way you will never run out of money!

Cheers,
Tzzimy

[Ufanatic]

All my countries are "exuberant", but the salary costs still are draining my cash (I've got about 30 soldiers, 50 scientists and 40 workers).  I'm starting to run out of stuff to research, so I could probably fire some scientists and save some money.

My PHALANX's financial controlling department firmly believes in "the power of new years eve":

PHALANX is to be shut down.
Or else, certain doom is coming.
No base shall be manned at 0:00 the 30th of december.
No employee shall shoot, research, pilot or assemble.
Your are all fired!
Champagne for everyone!

---

Also, what do you need 30 soldiers for?
Even if you employ two teams and have a couple heal up in the hospital every now and then you shouldn't exceed some 18 guys.

[dfscott]

Store enough UFOs to fill a yard and sell the crashed ones. I have in my yard only 100% intact UFOs (mostly Harvesters but you need Scouts and Fighters for research) that I got from terror missions. All the others I just sell them for quick bucks. Try to do as many missions as you can, that way you will never run out of money!

Good idea!  I wish I'd thought of that before I loaded my yards up with busted scouts.     Oh well, eventually they'll be disassembled and I can keep just the intact big ones.

Also, what do you need 30 soldiers for?
Even if you employ two teams and have a couple heal up in the hospital every now and then you shouldn't exceed some 18 guys.

Well, I want to keep every base manned at all times.  In the original UFO my base always seemed to be attacked when my soldiers were off on a mission.  No one was there to defend so my base would get completely wiped out.  So I now keep 16 soldiers in each of my two bases so I always have a full team left behind to defend.

[tzzimy]

Hmm, LOL i never thought of that!!! In my case I have 5 fully built bases globally and I keep 8 soldiers in each base (40 soldiers total). Because those bases are widely spread, I do not need more than 2-3 hours to fly to the scene, clean the bugs and return. It never happened yet to attack my base while my soldiers are out in a 2 to 7 hour window.

It could be handy to keep the lightly injured Soldiers (always take heavily injured soldiers in missions because when you heal them with medikit that is actually faster than hospital care) at bay for small missions unless there is a harvester-like attack. There is no need to attack a scout or fighter with more than 4-5 soldiers. The attacks in base use maximum 7-8 alliens and most of the times I have seen 5 attacking. So with 3 soldiers you should be fine and you could deal with them quickly in case they attack the base while your team is out on a mission.

Still by my experience it rarely happens. So keep 8 soldiers on each base but try to spread your bases across the globe for faster missions. Saves you game time as well.

[dfscott]

Hmm, LOL i never thought of that!!! In my case I have 5 fully built bases globally and I keep 8 soldiers in each base (40 soldiers total). Because those bases are widely and wisely spread, I do not need more than 2-3 hours to fly to the scene, clean the bugs and return. It never happened yet to attack my base while my soldiers are out in a 2 to 7 hour window.

Yeah, to be honest, I think since in 2.3 the aliens don't actually try to seize the base during base attacks (they usually just stand around outside), it probably wouldn't make any difference, but I try to play as if all the features are actually in place.

It could be handy to keep the lightly injured Soldiers (always take heavily injured soldiers in missions because when you heal them with medikit that is actually faster than hospital care) at bay for small missions unless there is a harvester-like attack.

OT, but the hospital vs. medkit thing bugs me.  A lot of times I'll try to leave one alien alive so I can get everyone healed up before completing a mission.  It seems backwards that you can heal faster with a medkit than a fully stocked hospital!   

There is no need to attack a scout or fighter with more than 4-5 soldiers. The attacks in base use maximum 7-8 alliens and most of the times I have seen 5 attacking. So with 3 soldiers you should be fine and you could deal with them quickly in case they attack the base while your team is out on a mission.

Still by my experience it rarely happens. So keep 8 soldiers on each base but try to spread your bases across the globe for faster missions. Saves you game time as well.

True.  The only other time it's a problem is when my firebird gets ambushed by a ufo on the way back from a mission and gets lost with all hands.  But even that's rarely a problem because I'm almost certainly restoring from a save in that case.