Advice for semi-noob?

[myname]

Hey guys, I just started the game, and being a strategy/tactics vet, I'm picking up the mechanics of the 2.3 version quite quickly.

But there were issues that I encountered-most of which I've searched the forum for answers-but at last after no success I hope some kind people here can help. 

First, I have no idea what the hotkeys are, I'm guessing I can find them somewhere like options but haven't found them yet :/
Second, I can't seem to understand the concept of "reserve tu's for shooting" and "reaction fire."  I know what reaction fire is supposed to do after reading the flood of forum posts complaining that it does not work, but why exactly doesn't it work?  And what's the reserve tu's for shooting option and how does that change the gameplay mechanic? 

Despite these flaws the game is still very engrossing, a greater accomplishment because it was made by volunteers.  Keep up the good work and thanks for a great pastime

[Jarkill]

Reserve TU's just temporary restricts the amount of tu's you can spend, so that you don't accidentally miscount and walk one step further, preventing you from shooting the enemy or whatever. Alternately means you don't have to count TU as you move.

I do believe hotkeys can be found if you go options -> show keys (at the bottom right). You can also change the keybindings there.

If we knew why reaction fire doesn't work, we would fix it. 

[Sarin]

Reaction fire works. Just the soldiers need some experience till they get good enough to use it.

[myname]

Thanks for your help!  I'm sure I can figure out hotkeys and stuff, and now I have a brand new question

So my base got attacked... aside from not being able to use some stairs, I found that my base had to many intersections where fire-and aliens-could come from any direction.  I decided that the preset PHALANX HQ sucked, and I wanted to build my own.  Is that possible for my first base?  Or can I only dictate building placement for my other bases after the first?

[Jarkill]

Thanks for your help!  I'm sure I can figure out hotkeys and stuff, and now I have a brand new question

So my base got attacked... aside from not being able to use some stairs, I found that my base had to many intersections where fire-and aliens-could come from any direction.  I decided that the preset PHALANX HQ sucked, and I wanted to build my own.  Is that possible for my first base?  Or can I only dictate building placement for my other bases after the first?

Correct.

[Ufanatic]

I do believe hotkeys can be found if you go options -> show keys (at the bottom right). You can also change the keybindings there.

This won't show all the keys in the game.

For example the highly useful SHIFT -> switch fire-targeting between air-torso-ground is not in there.

Any other keys one should know about?

[Snidely]

The quickest fix for reaction fire is to open the console by pressing ` once you're on the battlefield and then typing in "set g_reaction_fair 0" without the quotes. You'll see a message telling you the change will take effect on a reload, so leave the console by hitting ESC, go to the main menu by hitting ESC again, and click on "Retry".

You can test whether this has worked by going back to the console once it's reload and typing "g_reaction_fair". It should give you a message such as "g_reaction_fair set to 0". IIRC this makes it so that reaction fire depends just on the soldier's speed - it's not perfect, but it's better.

This only needs to be done once a game, it'll remember g_reaction_fair being 0 for battles until you exit the program.

Also, as a tip: research laser tech -> laser ammo -> laser rifles asap. Laser rifles are really accurate, pack a good punch until aliens get medium armour and are relatively cheap with the TUs. In all honesty I think the TUs for lasers should be bumped from 7 to 9 for single shot and 12 to 14 for three-burst; on maps where you're dumped straight into a shoot-out I used to have to scramble for cover, but with all lasers I just annihilate most of the enemy from the get-go.