[Eagle of Fire]

Originally posted by CMI Posted on Feb 1 2005@ 05:27 AM
Can a road vehicle go off-road, like to a crash or something? I couldn't get it to, so I got mad and sold all the road vehicles.

The answer is no, and I would say it was a good move to take the extra cash from the vehicles. I would suggest you not to sell the APC tough just in case your Skyranger get shooted down. It's still faster this way than to make your soldiers "walk" to the building.

Originally posted by CMI Posted on Feb 1 2005+ 05:27 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (CMI Posted on Feb 1 2005 @ 05:27 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Are security stations invulnerable? The aliens & co. shoot their little bombs at it, but it just keeps ripping them into tiny pieces.[/b]

Really depend of the Aliens weaponry VS your kind of security station. I've seen the default (first model available) version of the security station get destroyed so bad it actually destroyed the room and I had to rebuild it, so my answer to this question would be: they are not invulnerable.

<!--QuoteBegin-CMI Posted on Feb 1 2005@ 05:27 AM
Why do the interceptors suck in this game? In EU, a few interceptors could take down a battleship even with Stingers or whatever those wimpy missles were called, or one could do it with a plasma beam. But in this game, an interceptor would use all my money and just get blown up! I only use them for transport now. [/quote]
Because they are not interceptors. First of all, your Skyranger should not even engage the UFO's unless you want a deadly disaster to happen to your soldiers. Most of the time in my game that ship don't even lift off before the UFO's are retreating.

Second, you are fighting over a city, not a hundred miles over the sea or the ground. Supersonic planes would not be welcome and allow me to remind you that you been hired by the Government of that city to get rid of the Aliens, so it does make sense that you don't use them. What you can use is armored version of civil fying cars and ships which can (in theory but not in this game) fly as well in space than in the sky, so it makes sense that they are also slower than supersonic planes.

Even tough, your ships easily outmaneuver the medium to large UFO's and the Speeder Bike can easily outmaneuver the small ones. Since you can't count on either stealth, power or endurance (like in UFO), you'll have to gamble on speed and agility to survive in this kind of duel. All the ships comes with an engine which can be "upgraded", depending of the available engine space. As a rule of thumb, all engines can be "upgraded" at least "once", meaning that for example the Speeder Bikes can get a turbo engine which is slightly bigger than the original, but still fit in the little engine square. I would advise you to get better engine for all your crafts (I always do myself).

Here is a quote of an earlier post of mine in this thread which could be usefull for you:

Originally posted by Eagle of Fire Posted: Dec 11 2004@ 10:37 AM
The smaller and lesser UFO's are unmanned and won't require a fight. You'll just recover them. I usually only capture one of each of the smaller UFO's and then don't bother and make them explode in the air when I encounter them.

From past experiences, I am pretty sure that it does make a difference when you actually destroy Alien Ufo's. It doesn't take them much time to build new ones (perhaps a month max for the bigger ones?) but it does seem to buy youself some time and change the way the AI act. If you are very successful at the beginning, you will encounter a lot of bigger and bigger Ufo's until your current technology can't fight them without stupidly high losses. But then again, when you grab their own technology it really give you a boost!

The best strategy I have found so far to fight those Alien crafts is to take something like 5 Hover Bikes and set them to fight at the highest elevation possible and as close as possible to the target. You can change the stance of each craft when you select them on the CityScape. The Hover Bikes are stupidly hard to hit for the Aliens because they are so small and so maneuverable, and most of the time the Hover Bike will simply dodge the beams which would have teared your biggest ships appart without a problem. This allow your bigger ships (like the Phoenix Hover Car for example, which is cheap but virtually armorless) to stay further the front line and throw missiles from a further distance. Most of the time they won't even come under fire unless you are really fighting lots of UFO's at once. Also make sure that your Troop Transport is far from the action and safe. It's easy to lose it to bad luck if several Alien Crafts decide to fire at it at the same time.

Usually, I always make crafts which are 50% to retreat and repair. Crafts cost a lot in this game and losing them only to down a Ufo is not worth it. You can still use a craft being repaired on an emergency mission later on, and if Air Superiority fail then send your squaddie and eliminate the Alien threat from the ground.

The strategy mentionned above (with Hover Bikes) works quite well against Metropolis crafts as well, but is less effective due to them almost always having aiming missiles equiped and due to the fact that they are more maneuverable than most UFO's. They also really pack less of a punch, so unless you are unlucky retreating at 50% health will usually save your crafts anyways.

Don't overlook the Hover Bikes power. Their seemingly powerless guns really add up when they team up. Have 10 of them and you'll see them tear into a bigger UFO shield in no time. Plus they are really hard to hit and are cheap to replace.

Random tip #2: Always upgrade the biggest engine available to each of your craft. If you buy a bunch of crafts at the same time (or at the beginning of the game), you can actually take the engine of one craft and put it in another knowing it's the most powerfull one they can bear (because of the size of the engine square). For example, if I remember well the Phoenix Hovercar engine is the biggest engine a Hover Bike can be equipped with, so don't sell those and use them on the Hover Bikes you'll purchase. I think the same thing happen to your troop transport VS your Phoenix Hovercar but I don't remember well. Anyways, reason for this is that you want power and speed, and since you will be placing aiming equipment on those crafts and that it add weight and lower your engine power and acceleration (slightly), you have no choice if you don't want to suck the UFO's exhaust vapor trail. It also greatly help in combat. Maneuvrability is really your friend until you build your own crafts later in the game since your craft armor is very weak against the Aliens weapons.

Random tip #3: always make your crafts to fly and fight at the highest altitude unless you have a really good reason to do otherwise. Until you actually fight with beam weapons yourself, the aliens have the bigger guns... And a stray fire from those babies if it hit the base of a random building will usually result in having the building flattened completely. This will irritate the leaders of that faction to no end, taking their strance VS Xcom down each time. Plus the Government (which fund you) always get angry when anything on the city is destroyed and this goes against your weekly score. If you fly high the UFO usually fire at your upward, and you can save friendly fire on the town this way.

Of course, some members of the "Cult of Cyric" sometime accuse Xcom to fly around their buildings in purpose when fighting bigger Alien Crafts... Which always been soundly refuted by the Xcom Leaders. That's what war is about, you will have friendly fire sooner or later... ... ... Ahem...** :whistle:


Happy hunting!