UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Tactics => Topic started by: ETBuster on October 24, 2011, 09:55:09 pm
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In 2.3.1 I never had any issues with keeping the nations happy, however now I have 3 bases, one in north america, one in russia, and one in Australia, north america and Australia are strictly mission bases I have 16 soldiers between them and Russia is right next to my ufo yard for production, currently Im unable to un-assemble any ufos since their needed to keep my nations from giving up, I have 6 sam sites strategically placed wherever my stilettos cannot reach.
I am currently taking every mission possible and as far have not missed any of the terror missions that pop up from time to time and shooting down every ufo and selling them to the worst off nation.
It is rare that I lose any civilians in terror missions, most of my units are currently amazing shots especially with reaction shots, Ive been trying to retry ever mission where I lose a civilian however I didn't think that losing 1 would be taken so harshly.
Most of the nations are tolerant some are mad, and 1 or 2 become angry. Im desperately trying to acquire enough money to create a 4th base, perhaps I need to drop back a few saves and convert my 3rd base into another mission base instead of having it be full of workshops...
Im not sure if this is a glitch.. or perhaps just a new addition to the 2.4 version to add more of a challenge to the game, however in 2.3.1 I could easily miss a few missions with out losing an Exuberant nation.
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I can second this.
I built four new bases in the first month of a fresh game on standard difficulty, and shot every UFO out of the sky. I STILL ended up with one nation "giving up" before halfway through April and lost the game before the end of May. Tried another game with just two bases built up as fast as possible and lost that game before I'd even finished researching Plasma Pistol!
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You make all terror misions? i never lose a game for nation happness. It´s rare...
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Every one I've seen.
As a test I started a new game, put a new base on every continent in the first two months, played every mission that came my way for the first month, built one more lab and replaced the engineers with scientists, and sold all but one of each alien tech to keep the cash coming. I sold alien ships to the countries which were least happy but The Revolutionary Countries and Oceana were both "mad" by first of May.
Even then I got as far as building CCs and power plants in all bases - 20th May - before I lost the game.
I think there needs to be a "honeymoon period" whereby you get given a 12 week free pass to at least build the barebones of a base (power plant, control room, stores and radar) and show some willing to protect it before they get unhappy.
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ManicMiner, can you supply some more information?
- what version of the game are you using?
- if you are using a development version, when was the last time you downloaded/compiled?
- what difficulty level are you using?
I have not played a campaign with the latest development version in a month or so, but your experience is completely different from my experience on a medium-difficulty campaign. Perhaps something got changed recently.
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I don't have access to my laptop right now - will post later. It is 2.4 Dev and was freshly recompiled from source this week, including rebuild of all maps. Medium difficulty.
I optimize the compile for dual core and run it on Win7 x64. Will post the affected savegames etc later.
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Game and logs attached. This is one where a nation's happiness will drop shortly after load and whether you destroy the ship and complete a successful mission or not, the game will be lost in a matter of days.
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My question is if you fought the crash-site missions. If you did them manually or using (mostly) automission.
Shooting down UFOs is not enough, you should kill them all...
-geever
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Ok. This was a quesion dancing on my head :-D
It´s neccesary make all crash missions? How affect the game if i leave some crash sites intact? i mean, it´s very tedius to do all missions, when all days the ufo are flying massively.
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Let's just say you might as well put your dick in a blender for all the happiness that will net you.
This game really has an annoying tendency to get tedious rather fast.
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Ok. This was a quesion dancing on my head :-D
It´s neccesary make all crash missions? How affect the game if i leave some crash sites intact? i mean, it´s very tedius to do all missions, when all days the ufo are flying massively.
Crash-site missions are like other missions. If you win them nations get happier if you abandon them, nations get unhappier. Very simple.
-geever
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I played every mission I could but hit problems with my best grunts being on <20% health.
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I played every mission I could but hit problems with my best grunts being on <20% health.
Manually or automatically?
I played the game on normal difficulty a few months ago and didn't experience the problem, and I'm almost sure nothing has changed in nation happiness code part since then. The only flaw I can imagine is related to automissions, that code changed much.
-geever
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I did most of them manually, and only lost half a dozen civilians in the first two months.
I've started another game and this time round created only one new base in the first month, focused on building HQ up for research only (even took out the workshop) and built more bases in the second month and workshops in the second base. This time round it's a lot easier to maintain happiness across the board. BUT: here's the thing. If I position the bases so they overlap nations I seem to find it a lot easier to keep them all happy. If you stick a base in the middle of North America so the radar doesn't cover any other nation, for example, that seems to have a detrimental impact on happiness outside of North America but if you build a base with radar to cover Europe, most of the Middle East and Africa instead, then I have three marginally happier nations instead of one.
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i have only been playing on hardest difficulty, so i don't know a bout the rest, but what i do is this: build a second base asap.
i want to have a quick research base that is not my first base, but in the beginning i just build a second lab in the first base.
and using just one stiletto and some sam turrets looks like a good idea, because you can attack scouts with stiletto and attract fighters to the sam by hovering your stiletto over the base.
the alternative seems to have three stilettos to attack a fighter, but even then you would be loosing stilettos sometimes, and it gets expensive, and you only have so many available.
and sam turrets are really quick and cheap to build.
as for the missions being tedious, have bases with sam where most ufos drop into the sea, like the marshall islands or tip of antarctic peninsula, or central america.
that goes well with the base placement that is optimized for radar coverage.
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I tried Hard and Very Hard levels, but gave up because I couldn't seem to keep the nations happy enough. The game was continually ending whilst I was building and awaiting sightings to engage. Reloading from an earlier save, seemed to change the course of the game slightly, but the outcome was still unavoidable.
The few missions that came along were completed successfully - all manual and alien ships sold to the highest bidder, and in the next attempt, the nation with the lowest level of happiness - there didn't seem to be very much effect between the 2 methods.
Perhaps the difficulty levels should be more geared to the actual mission/conflict with the aliens. Success or failure rate should then be a reflection on the happiness of the nation where the mission took place. I get the feeling that whilst trying to set up your first base(s) there isn't enough mission action to cater for the volatile happiness levels in these early stages?
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i do wonder how you managed to make nations unhappy that way.
playing the one-base way i also made nations unhappy by the end of second month, but building a second base asap i didn't even come close to getting defeated because of unhappiness, and i tried twice.
first base at lake baykal, because i like how grenades bounce on ice (not even saying that it is a beautiful lake in real life, and therefore an especially good location for the decadent phalanx agents), and second base in nicaragua, third at the northern tip of madagascar (although a better location for radar coverage should be at lake malawi).
so, with more than one base intercepting ufos in the middle of april and cleaning them up quickly as most crashes were close to bases, there seemed to be some 1 to 3 'content' and a few 'happy'.
now i am wondering why you were having trouble, if you say you had few missions, maybe that's just being extremely unlucky or something.
it might mean that, even with the second radar, the aliens were doing their thing outside your radar range most of the time.
and that would be extremely unlucky in my opinion, because in my games, ufos flied around a lot, and eventually ended up in my radar range (looked quite reliable).
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now i am wondering why you were having trouble, if you say you had few missions, maybe that's just being extremely unlucky or something.
it might mean that, even with the second radar, the aliens were doing their thing outside your radar range most of the time.
and that would be extremely unlucky in my opinion, because in my games, ufos flied around a lot, and eventually ended up in my radar range (looked quite reliable).
I think we can discount the luck element all together, judging by the number of restarts and game reloads in trying to persevere. IIRC, the furthest progress made was just after the end of month 1 and the set up of Base 2 with a couple of Living Quarters builds.
Up to this point, I guess perhaps 5 or 6 missions with the bulk being successful Alien Scout interception and then DS visit.. as stated, firstly selling the wreckage to the highest bidder each time, then subsequently to the unhappiest nation. A few hours on from here, whilst awaiting the next sighting, the game ends because I cannot look after all the nations needs.
If Alien activity is happening outside of my radar area, then there isn't so much I can do about it really.. ;) ::)
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you are tempting me to play the first two months over again, just to check it again, maybe it was me who was lucky right at the moment when i changed my strategy, and got false impression that way.
starting at baykal, i remember my nicaragua base started intercepting ufos at about april 15, and third base at madagascar started intercepting ufos at april 25.
for a fun fact i saw a soldier with 3 accuracy, and 38 heavy weapons, who would give a heavy weapon to that guy (except flamer, i guess)?
i think i'll try a new game until may, and see how it goes.
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Hi everybody,
according to my experience so far, maintaining international happiness isn‘t a big issue during the first month‘s. Additionally it seems like a high number of successful missions (no matter at which location) does strongly improve international happiness.
But as some people really seem to struggle on this, I’m wondering to which extend the location of the first base does influence somebody‘s ability to detect an shoot UFO‘s? Are there regions that exhibit a higher density of UFO flyovers then others do?
As an example, in my current game (Version: 2.4-dev Nov 24, 2011) on normal difficulty I‘ve build my first base in the asian Republic and the second one in the US. By now (May 18, 2084) I‘ve performed 68 missions. While the majority of missions took place around Asia, already all the Nations are at least happy.
Regards, Magniff
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Well thanks for the input.
There just may be something in what you say as homunculus starts in a different place too. I must admit I normally start in New Africa - first base towards the west, mainly because I used to love the Harvester desert missions, but there doesn't seem to be quite so many with the latest builds.. maybe I will try again and place the HQ somewhere completely different. ;) ;D
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tried the first two months again, and the game allowed me to continue to may again.
2 happy, 3 content, the rest pleased.
this time i didn't build a second lab in the first base, but saved money to get 2 additional bases quickly.
first mission done from second base was april 11.
what i noticed, however, was some ufo hyperactivity starting at april 25.
it seems that if you are not able to detect and intercept ufo-s in more than one location by then, you will be discontinued.
fair enough imho, and makes sense from roleplay perspective.
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Here's some more feedback:
I've started a game on the very hard level half a week ago (freshly downloaded 2.4 dev version) and I never had any serious issues with nation happiness. They did sometimes fall below the limit, but never worse than a mission + a couple sold UFOs can fix. Soon enough in July i was able to get them all Exuberant and now I can even ignore any UFO except those that land or crash by themselves, without interception.
If it's an issue on lower difficulties, I think we can suggest it's due to not enough UFO's being generated for you to shoot down and raid. That's really a bad thing if it's so, because overwhelming amount of UFOs all with the same tedious missions is imho the worst part of the game.
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Seems like there are some opposing strategies which are, never the less, working quite good.
Therefore it seems interesting to learn more about the individual extent of the separate happiness impacts.
Especially it‘s hard to separate the impacts of the following actions:
a) Shooting down a UFO
b) Performing a tactical crahside-mission
c) Selling the UFO‘s remands
The following section tries to accumulate the information that was provided on this topic so far:
1.) As reported by geever in reply #7: Shooting UFO‘s without performing action b) and c) won‘t be enough to maintain happiness (low impact)
2:) As reported by homunculus in reply #14: Shooting enough UFO‘s at the sea is maintaining international happiness, even though action b) and c) are unavailable. (medium impact)
3.) As reported by me in reply #19: Performing a crashside-mission seems to generate some kind of overall happiness increase, no matter which nation the crashside belongs to. (medium impact)
4.) According to my own experience: Performing some crashside-missions within a certain nations territory generates a recognizable impact on it‘s happiness (high impact)
5.) As reported by nanomage in reply #22: Selling UFO‘s in adequate numbers to a certain nation also does a good job on increasing this nations happiness (high impact)
As point 1.) and 2.) seem to contradict each other, I‘m either missing something or there must be some special mechanic concerning UFO‘s which are shoot at the sea.
To me, the best bet on this special mechanic would be the overall increase on happiness (point 3.), which seems to be gifted automatically if someone shoots a UFO at sea.
Any suggestions, adjustments or additions?
_
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I got to say, I'm noticing it's more difficult to keep a nation happy, especially early game.
I saw relations drop by 2-3 point within 1 hour.
Asia went from Pleased to Giving Up one me in one day..One day. Despite me selling ALL of my ufo's to it. Possible it was hit by several terror missions in a row?
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in the beginning game the nations are dissatisfied, then they will be balanced for a month or two, and then they will all be uniformly exuberant, meaning that the nation happiness might be excluded from the interface after that point.
i don't know what happens with xvi, though, never seen any xvi.
well, you could call it 'something that needs more balancing', i guess.
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And then you lose the game via trigger happy recruit holding a flamer.
I like.
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In my experience with the latest dev version, it's ludicrously difficult to keep the nations happy in the first two or three months - their relationship with you constantly drops no matter what you do and you essentially have to shoot down every single UFO you see and do every single mission that becomes available and sell every single piece of wreckage just to keep them from shutting you down. However, for some reason, once you hit late May/early June, it peters off, they're much more forgiving of mistakes, their satisfaction falls more slowly and is raised more easily. I'm not sure if this is a bug, or if it's a hidden feature - the funding nations being initially skeptical of the organization but becoming more willing to support them after they've had a few months of successful operation.
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Coyote, could you offer you savegame for analysis?
-geever
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In my experience with the latest dev version, it's ludicrously difficult to keep the nations happy in the first two or three months - their relationship with you constantly drops no matter what you do and you essentially have to shoot down every single UFO you see and do every single mission that becomes available and sell every single piece of wreckage just to keep them from shutting you down. However, for some reason, once you hit late May/early June, it peters off, they're much more forgiving of mistakes, their satisfaction falls more slowly and is raised more easily. I'm not sure if this is a bug, or if it's a hidden feature - the funding nations being initially skeptical of the organization but becoming more willing to support them after they've had a few months of successful operation.
I sort of confirm this, happiness is much harder to maintain in the beginning. I came to think it's because there's not many UFOs in the beginning, so you can't get enough missions to perform and remains to sell.
It's just that i never thought of it as of a bug: after all, you are supposed to try and shoot down every UFO you see, and you are supposed to do every tactical mission, and there's nothing to do with all those UFO's in the beginning other than sell them. That seems perfectly right for me.
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there is such game like x-force where, as far as i remember, ufo-s gathered some happiness points from nations by flying over nation territories and probably more by landing here and there, and then the ufo-s flew away back into space.
in short, the ufo-s came to earth to take away our happiness.
so the player had to shoot down the ufo (before the ufo left) and do a mission to recover the happiness of the nations the ufo had gathered points from.
it was nice to read a clear statement about it somewhere.
i wonder what the happiness model is based on in ufo:ai.
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Coyote, could you offer you savegame for analysis?
-geever
Here's my latest playthrough. This one is in mid-May, and as you'll notice all of the nations are quite satisfied with my performance, with none of them going below 'Pleased' and most of them in the Happy/Exuberant range. You can also see that most of them actually reduced my funding significantly at the end of April - the Revolutionary Countries, in particular, very nearly stopped funding me altogether - despite the fact that I did every available tactical mission and sold every captured UFO to them their opinion never went above Neutral until May. Russia, oddly, kept its funding for me the exact same up until a few in-game days ago, never increasing or decreasing its satisfaction rating no matter what I did, while the Asian Republic and Commonwealth of Oceania were actually fairly satisfied with my performance - most of the missions I did were on their territory, so I assume that has something to do with it.
You'll also notice that the secondary combat team based at Groom Lake is equipped with plasma pistols and nothing else; I was in a hurry to equip them quickly for a terror mission in Panama and haven't gotten around to giving them proper gear yet. And yes, I know Baikonur is in the wrong place, I couldn't remember exactly where it was so I just plopped the base randomly in Kazakhstan.
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Just wondered if there has been anything further with this.
I am trying Very Hard level and still not having too much luck.
Attached savegame opens up at 1659hrs on 30th May 2084.
I have 1 and a half bases. (still building base 02)
Stats show Nation Hapiness levels as:
1 - Mad
3 - Content
1 - Tolerant
2 - Happy
1 - Neutral
I have tried re-loading this save many times to try to move forward.
When Scout appears, send out Saracen and shoot down.
Send out DS and mop up and sell the UFO to a: The Unhappiest Nation and b: the Highest Bidder (in one test case to the lowest bidder) Apart from the Oriental Map error of "Bad Routing Lump" (already reported) when I take on the mission and I have to choose to auto-complete - whatever action I take, as soon as the clock/calendar rolls over to pay-time (1st June - 1 and a half days later) the game ends with the "You've Lost The Game" screen.
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i have to agree with this, i played a fair game, did all crash sites, and took down all alien ships that were in my range, and not flying awya form me, made 2 aditional bases, 3 sam batteries fully equiped, but i stil got 1 country rebeling:/ before i couild even put nanoarmor on a full squad.
this needs a fix
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@Gren
a base that is meant for protecting-humankind-from-alien-threat has
1) entrance
2) living quarters
3) command center
4) power plant
5) storage
6) radar
7) small hangar
8) large hangar
how quickly this gets built is very simple math (see screenshot).
looking at your game file, you seem to be quite a builder, lol.
what good is a second base if it is right next to the first one?
and, more importantly, what do you do with all those labs so early in the game?
the aliens are killing civilians with impunity in south america, but phalanx base commander is acting as if it was some kind of a game, or else like some private business of his, trying to build strategically and invest into research.
do you think the nations are stupid and do not understand that?
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@Gren
a base that is meant for protecting-humankind-from-alien-threat has
1) entrance
2) living quarters
3) command center
4) power plant
5) storage
6) radar
7) small hangar
8) large hangar
how quickly this gets built is very simple math (see screenshot).
looking at your game file, you seem to be quite a builder, lol.
what good is a second base if it is right next to the first one?
and, more importantly, what do you do with all those labs so early in the game?
the aliens are killing civilians with impunity in south america, but phalanx base commander is acting as if it was some kind of a game, or else like some private business of his, trying to build strategically and invest into research.
do you think the nations are stupid and do not understand that?
Well thanks for your words homunculus, but I guess I have a good idea of what a base needs to function and your screen-shot tells me nothing. ???
In this campaign, I set up Base 1 (HQ - if you wish) somewhere in the mid-northern area of the Algerian desert and my second base in the Gulf areas (Saudi Arabia/UAE) - are you trying to tell me that these are too close to each other?
I built 3 labs in Base 1 to prepare for all the research that is required... 30 Scientists still make a slow job of their tasks-in-hand.. especially when, at this stage of the campaign, only 25 are available. Are you of the opinion that that is also bad practice?
Perhaps the Aliens are killing civilians elsewhere on the globe, but I am of the opinion that within THIS game, where those areas are out of radar-sight, eye-sight or whatever, it should not have an effect on the success or failure of Phalanx and the campaign, until at least a decent period for the establishment of Phalanx is achieved.
I don't think that your argument here is a valid one, especially when I am advised of activity in a country on the opposite side of the globe to where my first bases are and I have to despatch a drop-ship with crew on a very long trip in answer to the report.
No - I don't believe I play the game thinking that the nations are stupid (tbh - I never gave it a thought ::)) but I do understand that this is a game where the player can experience absorbing pleasure in the game's objectives and that a difficulty level should primarily be based around the ferocity of the attackers and mission difficulty - rather than based purely on how or where a base is situated and the progress of the build at any given moment on the calendar.
I am informed (as my save-game reveals) that I have failed and lost the game within something like 9 weeks into the campaign at this level. I have no trouble with my build strategy in Standard level and the Hard level I am seeing some success with atm - so all I am saying is that I believe that the controls for the Very Hard level should be revisited and looked at - and really, it shouldn't be a pre-cursor to invite tongue-in-cheek comments which may be seen to be pointing ridicule - if you have something constructive to add to the thread - then I would really welcome it.
Thank-you for the input anyway. ;)
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I built 3 labs in Base 1 to prepare for all the research that is required... 30 Scientists still make a slow job of their tasks-in-hand.. especially when, at this stage of the campaign, only 25 are available. Are you of the opinion that that is also bad practice?
yes, this is exactly what i am saying, probably about 5-th time now, and you seem to have made progress, at least you now noticed it.
so, why did you not notice this before?
this is probably the same reason why you don't see anything in the screenshot.
the nations are smart enough to realize that your phalanx management style is such that the nations would prefer being properly killed by aliens rather than being insulted like that by their own kind (= killed civilians in south america are an investment in your phalanx business).
and not only that, but it seems your phalanx commander is also self-righteous while doing so.
the whole thing seems to be about unlearning what you might have learned in different situations in other games.
from the style of your post it seems that the unlearning is too much to digest right now, and after the shock you might need some time to come to terms with yourself, and anything i write as further explanation would rather lead to useless arguments until then.
i mean, in my opinion, you base management is that much off.
it is like 'all the civilians got killed while phalanx soldiers were running for the best sniping position'.
edit:
oh, i certainly forgot the demagogic rule: overkill is better than "just about right".
i am going to correct this mistake now.
so, you are not protecting people as fast as you could, which is not as fast as some ordinary construction worker could issue the orders to build those 8 buildings, because you are making a strategic investment that is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.
indirectly, the strategic investment comes from dead latinos.
so, you are saying that the latinos should not count.
maybe it is because you think that all that the latinos do is carnivals, cutting down rain forests, and growing cocaine anyway, and such investment would be reasonable.
let the latinos die.
then, maybe you would think that dead chinese should count less, because there are so many of them anyway.
what about dead black people, they have strange customs and way of life, they might not count as real humans.
what about dead muslims, they are terrorists anyway.
what about women, they might be inferior, you know, it might be appropriate that they counted as half maybe.
jews would be complicated--on one hand, nazis thought they would make the world a better place by killing jews, on the other hand if it comes to financing, jews might count twice.
i think it is good that you cannot play with this attitude in ufo:ai, at least on very hard level.
and i think that being able to play the game with just one base like in x-com: enemy unknown was an artifact, and ufo:ai is better at least in that point.
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edit:
oh, i certainly forgot the demagogic rule: overkill is better than "just about right".
i am going to correct this mistake now.
so, you are not protecting people as fast as you could, which is not as fast as some ordinary construction worker could issue the orders to build those 8 buildings, because you are making a strategic investment that is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.
indirectly, the strategic investment comes from dead latinos.
so, you are saying that the latinos should not count.
maybe it is because you think that all that the latinos do is carnivals, cutting down rain forests, and growing cocaine anyway, and such investment would be reasonable.
let the latinos die.
then, maybe you would think that dead chinese should count less, because there are so many of them anyway.
what about dead black people, they have strange customs and way of life, they might not count as real humans.
what about dead muslims, they are terrorists anyway.
what about women, they might be inferior, you know, it might be appropriate that they counted as half maybe.
jews would be complicated--on one hand, nazis thought they would make the world a better place by killing jews, on the other hand if it comes to financing, jews might count twice.
i think it is good that you cannot play with this attitude in ufo:ai, at least on very hard level.
and i think that being able to play the game with just one base like in x-com: enemy unknown was an artifact, and ufo:ai is better at least in that point.
Total and utter flame-baiting rubbish!
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happy failing, and you already know it yourself, don't you.
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Something definitely broke somewhere.
Very Easy Difficulty, base in Europe, attacking everything I can without letting troops get killed and have a second base operational covering America (both nations)... still have countries ready to give up in a little over two weeks
modified the campaigns file to decrease anger rate of nations to basically nothing and grant absurd amount of starting money (enough to build four bases with ease... they start giving up within a month.
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AusJolt, can you provide a save game file? Thanks.
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Well thanks for your words homunculus, but I guess I have a good idea of what a base needs to function and your screen-shot tells me nothing. ???
In this campaign, I set up Base 1 (HQ - if you wish) somewhere in the mid-northern area of the Algerian desert and my second base in the Gulf areas (Saudi Arabia/UAE) - are you trying to tell me that these are too close to each other?
I built 3 labs in Base 1 to prepare for all the research that is required... 30 Scientists still make a slow job of their tasks-in-hand.. especially when, at this stage of the campaign, only 25 are available. Are you of the opinion that that is also bad practice?
Perhaps the Aliens are killing civilians elsewhere on the globe, but I am of the opinion that within THIS game, where those areas are out of radar-sight, eye-sight or whatever, it should not have an effect on the success or failure of Phalanx and the campaign, until at least a decent period for the establishment of Phalanx is achieved.
I don't think that your argument here is a valid one, especially when I am advised of activity in a country on the opposite side of the globe to where my first bases are and I have to despatch a drop-ship with crew on a very long trip in answer to the report.
No - I don't believe I play the game thinking that the nations are stupid (tbh - I never gave it a thought ::)) but I do understand that this is a game where the player can experience absorbing pleasure in the game's objectives and that a difficulty level should primarily be based around the ferocity of the attackers and mission difficulty - rather than based purely on how or where a base is situated and the progress of the build at any given moment on the calendar.
I am informed (as my save-game reveals) that I have failed and lost the game within something like 9 weeks into the campaign at this level. I have no trouble with my build strategy in Standard level and the Hard level I am seeing some success with atm - so all I am saying is that I believe that the controls for the Very Hard level should be revisited and looked at - and really, it shouldn't be a pre-cursor to invite tongue-in-cheek comments which may be seen to be pointing ridicule - if you have something constructive to add to the thread - then I would really welcome it.
Thank-you for the input anyway. ;)
I think the point he is trying to make is that Very Hard means it's going to be very hard. You have to be proactive in getting more bases of coverage up rather than trying to build a lot of workshops and labs. It's like playing an RTS game vs a really good player and saying NO RUSH 15 MIN. Very hard isn't just going to let you build up like that until you get solid multi-base coverage. If you don't care for that, play on lower difficulties or modify the files yourself. Some people like the challenge of being on the razor's edge and being forced to expand as quickly as possible.
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Was something changed in this regard for the final 2.4 release? I'm playing on the hardest and it's, well, easy.
There are more aliens per tac mission (which is great!), nations were a bit grumpy at first before I managed to build a second base, now they're happy/exuberant but funding is still low (negative after base expenses etc, but selling alien stuff keeps me running without a problem). I'm in the later stages of the game now, having researched coilgun etc.
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I played on Hard, which is not the same, I know, but I've never had any issues with keeping them happy. Usually any time someone gets a little unhappy with me I sell them a recovered UFO and they perk right up. I've just glanced through the thread but I didn't really see that mentioned, just about building bases and keeping good coverage. The countries I didn't have bases in complained the most, but I had everyone happy with just one or two bases in the beginning and within 6-8 months everyone was exuberant. In the beginning, selling UFO's generates more cash than selling them because you get more money from the countries.
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I have a question for the people who managed the nations' unhappiness by building two bases:
Where did you build your bases?
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First one in europe / asia where it can cover area of multiple nations, second one in middle america so it can reach both north and south americas. When funds allow I build a third one in australasia. America base gets labs and australasia base gets workshops, in addition to two interceptors and a tactical team for each (for this I usually need a fourth base in australasia because workshops take up so much space).
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I classified my bases in: Headquartes (HQ), Airbase (AB), Manufacture base (MB) and Radar base (RB)
First one; Europe. I build it on Slovakia (HQ). I have my laboratories here.
Second one; Korea. This is an AB, for cover North America, Oceania, Asia, Russia and support Europe air wing (well, "wing" :D)
Third one. Poland. My MB. I build it very near the HQ, so, i can build a sam defensive pattern, using three SAM and the HQ SAM. I can defend my HQ, MB and the Ufo Yard with only three SAMs sites and my HQ defenses.
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Fourth, Venezuela. Another AB. Cover entire american continent, Pacific and Atlantic. It can support the far west Europe.
Fifth. Australia. A radar base.
Six. Canada (west coast). Radar base.
Seven. Angola. Radar base.
Eight. India AB. I build it at the southest point of India. This is a support base to engage ufos flying Oceania, Africa and cover the Firebird flight from HQ to any point of Asia and Oceania. I have an empty large hangar here for the Firebird if i need run for cover.
In Antartica, i have an array of SAMs and one Radar. I catch up many ufos here!
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You have mail. ;D
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Mail?
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Hmm. I only completed a single campaign on VH level - after a single abortive attempt - so your mileage might vary.
This said, I built a single UY in the game - the remaining installation were Radar Towers.
This way I was able to monitor large portions of land for upcoming ground missions.
As for intercepting UFOs larger than Scouts, you'll need to outfit Stilettos with particle beam weaponry and laser cannon to shoot them down without any risk.
But you don't really need to do that until later in the game. Do every single mission, win every single mission and the funding nations will be happy with you.
Of course it can get tedious - and when it gets to the infamous "mansion near the coast" it surely does! - but it's your best bet to keep them from abandoning the project.
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(continued here from another thread (http://ufoai.org/forum/index.php/topic,6939.30.html) where it was way off-topic)
currently the "air combat skill" is to use the 'one solid arrow, like the standard play button' speed on geoscape while attacking a fighter ufo with two interceptors.
because the 'tick' on geoscape works in strange ways (there has been some trouble with it before with production, afaik).
it looks like at higher speeds the interceptors do not shoot as often as they should.
and start to use energy weapons on interceptors as soon as possible (ammunition costs quite a lot).
and i get the impression that by selling parts of a dismantled ufo i get more cash than by selling it right after the mission.
and, if you have not checked who your greatest sponsor is, perhaps you should do so, and build radar coverage there (hint: china).
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...
and i get the impression that by selling parts of a dismantled ufo i get more cash than by selling it right after the mission.
Interesting observation, I've been wondering for a while what was the best way - other than that I try to disassemble as many UFOs as possible to get my hands on alien materials.
It would not be illogical that selling parts would be more profitable: one could maximize the profits on each individual part, there's no "bulk discount", etc. A bit like old books were cut up and sold as separate pages to maximize the profit :)
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When an UFO is damaged (and crashes), its material value is accordingly lower, and all its fuel is lost.
The first subsystem that is damaged on a crashed UFO seems to be one of its engines.
It is advisable to store at least once a vessel from each class, in good shape, to know what and how many subsytems it holds, because you don't know when prompted to sell it (only its hull integrity in percents).
Here are some data (v2.4) if you want :
Maximum benefit is achieved with non damaged UFOs, and is to be added to the maximum derelict's selling price to nations to get the total income. I didn't include the materials' and fuel's selling, because you need them and they are of no value to non-PHALANX..
It is advisable to store at least once a vessel from each class, in good shape, to know what and how many subsytems it holds. You don't have this information when prompted to sell it.
Scout :
Derelict's selling price : 7 - 9 Kc
Dismantling cost : 4 Kc
Sold subsystems : 16 Kc
Max. benefit : 3 Kc
I didn't test much on scouts, because they are of low value. But as as soon as they have lost one subsystem (health < 68% ?), they are better sold to scrapers.
Fighter :
Derelict's selling price : 10 - 12 Kc
Dismantling cost : 4-5 Kc
Sold subsystems : 27 Kc
Max. benefit : 10 Kc
The main purpose of dismantling a fighter is to retrieve its weapon. The sooner the better, and it takes 1800 man.hours less than with the harvester. If you don't sell the weapon, then the benefit shrinks to nearly null. Early, you may dismantle fighters moderately to lightly damaged (when hull integrity is 56% - 75%), but know that a 50% damaged craft has only one engine to sell. As soon as you have harvesters to dismantle, always sell fighters, because for the same number of weapons, it takes two fighters, and time-wise, money-wise, fuel-wise, material wise, it doesn't match the one harvester. Moreover, you rarely get undamaged fighters... (early base and terror missions, I think).
Harvester :
Derelict's selling price : 16-20 Kc
Dismantling cost : 9 Kc
Sold subsystems : 61 Kc
Max. benefit : 32 Kc
Although I like Crashed Harvester missions, I refrain to take them down. Because they are my only energy source so far (and I don't know how much the advanced craft use per flight). And because they bear two weapons. As it takes time to dismantle (more than 4 days with 50 workers), and you have so many non damaged harvesters to retrieve, I didn't take time to try and dismantle damaged ones.
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Thanks for sharing, very insightful! :)
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I didnt read yet all the four pages of this interesting thread, so I dont know if what I would like to add was already discussed or not at all. But I dont think, it's only a little tip I use, that appears to me (at least) useful for maximize the number of nations satisfied by my actions.
The tip consists on placing first bases at frontiers between nations and not at center. Doing that you will probably detect UFOs other various nations and save their own civilians with no particular effort. So you maximize your missile depots, your radars, and your intercepting fighters, in order to satisfy the maximum different nation people.
My first base is always spoted at hymalaya, and then laters depending on happiness of nations, for instance frontier between Europe and USSR both if they are both in need.
Doing that and saving always the more civilians I can (even by sacrifying soldiers) in battlescape showed me great results for happiness. I must add that I play in hard mode and must absolutly look at happiness of nations before anything else (if not game ends suddenly).