New to Xenonauts - Air Game / Strategic Mode Advice?

[Lohengramm]

Hi all.

I'm in month 3 while playing X:CE and I noticed my initial strategy of building a 2nd fully operational combat base (with troops, medical, chopper) is not panning out, even in Normal. I'm still losing funding even North America, where I stood up this second base and have shot down and recovered a Corvette among other things! What is especially annoying, though, is that incoming Corvettes and Scouts seem to be skirting the edge of my Condor's fuel limits entirely on purpose so that I can't actually shoot them down before they run away and my interceptors have to go refuel.

I don't doubt I can recover from what is happening eventually and pull out a win in the end, but, I do feel like I approached Xenonauts incorrectly. I'm not sure if this is because I'm in Community Edition or if basic Xenonauts is behind this strategy shift, though.

The correct approach to saving the world in Xenonauts seems to actually be more about having 1 "main" base in the early game that you fly ground missions out of, and 3+ satellite bases that exist solely to shoot down alien craft in order to protect your funding / provide more income from air striking all the extra crashes. I'm imagining this leads to the xenos eventually attempting to destroy your otherwise defenseless satellite bases, since you're frustrating all their air operations, but I'm also imagining I have a few months to stand up soldiers and equipment in these satellite bases before that happens.

So if I was going to start over, instead of opening up a 2nd full interception & ground operation base in North America at the start of month 2... I should have opened up a base in North and South America, dedicated to 2 Condors and 1 Foxtrot (eventually, for Corvettes and beyond). Then my funding in that hemisphere would be well protected and I could milk air strikes to pay for the bases themselves. My initial base in Europe could then continue to be my main R&D and manufacturing location while also serving to train up my first batch of troops. Eventually I could start to ship trained troops and their gear around the world and step up ground operations to increase my alien materials and cash intake further and further. Hopefully before base raids start being a thing

Oh and, it seems to me that because radars are so expensive, it would also make more sense to build a 2nd base than to build 2 extra radars (400k!) ASAP in your initial location.

Does this sound like a better approach to the strategic game than what I did?

Edited October 23, 2015 by Lohengramm

[Loki45]

I can only speak for what I did which I have had success with on normal difficulty. I built an extra base with a radar as quickly as I could and stocked it with two condors and one foxtrot as soon as I got the money to do so. My next move was to build a third base along the same lines and made sure I covered as much area as I could. That seems to have been sufficient for me to keep most countries raising their contributions with a few, Australia in particular, barely breaking even. At the point I am at I can pretty much shoot down any ship approaching my base and the few that have gotten through were shot down by base defenses of which I have two at each site. Once the ship got through and I had to do a base defense scenario.

[EvilEagles]

I've played through one campaign with X:CE on Veteran difficulty, and it doesn't seem to differ *too* much from vanilla Xenonauts. The strategies that I used on vanilla I/I still works very well in X:CE (at least on Veteran difficulty).

The most important aspect in which you have to almost ALWAYS be ahead of the aliens, is air game. If your airgame does too badly, there will be no crash sites for all the ground combat investments you've made to be put to use, AND it also means decreases in funding. So in the first few months, prioritize ALL of your resources on researches and upgrades for radar coverage and interceptors.

I can go into specific details if you need more help. Don't really wanna ruin the fun for you unless you ask.

[Lohengramm]

I can go into specific details if you need more help. Don't really wanna ruin the fun for you unless you ask.

Oh, no I think I see what I need to do Thanks for confirming what I was starting to think, though.

[Ichthyic]

I've found a useful strategy for the 3-base method is to make your first base balanced, with 2 research labs and 2 workshops, which need populating ASAP, and 5 hangers, which gives you *just* enough air power (often need to double-up with condor attacks). my second base has 6 hangers and 3 research labs (populate 1 of them in october, another in november, and another in January) and no workshops at all. the 3rd base has again 6 hangars, but now has 4 workshops instead of research labs. populate those workshops 2 in december, and 2 in january, and your production will skyrocket. make your interceptors at the workshop base, and your weapons/armor at your first base. rotate out older interceptors back to your manufacturing base, then retire them as you run out of room.

also, start your base building so that it finishes the 1st day of the next month, then you don't pay upkeep on the base. same with any structures you don't need immediately; start building them so they finish after the end of the month.

Corsairs are much much better than foxtrots, wrt firepower, so with a bit of effort, you can start to assemble your fleet of corsairs in December, and replace most of your airforce by mid January or so; don't build more than one foxtrot per base. I use them mostly as fast decoys while using condors to actually attack. once you get corsairs though, one corsair easily outdoes both a condor and a foxtrot together.

lastly, don't forget you can send out interceptors on "patrol" to areas not covered by your radar. look for messages on the global map about alien attacks, and if not out of range, try sending an interceptor or two out to the area to scout for aliens. Great way to prevent bombing runs before you have good radar coverage.