18.51 HF3 General Strategy Discussion/Help!

[StellarRat]

A thread to help new players and old ones (like me.) So, I'll open with a couple of things I'm having trouble with.

1. I know some of you have managed to build multiple bases, but I never seem to have enough money for that and upgrading my equipment. How are you pulling that off?

2. How many scientists and engineers do you buy at the game start? I've found that I tend to go with 15 scientists at the start plus you need to build an extra lab and workshop fairly soon.

[Sathra]

Its harder now with the reduction in income (due to lower funding and reduced aliens). Still slowly making it through a vanilla game so I'll update then.

As for techs and eggheads? When I started a game in the earlier builds I build a med centre, lab and living quarters. Then hire 5 scientists. When the LQ is done, start a workshop. When the lab is 3 days from finishing I hire 15 more scientists. Then as income permits I add more workshops (and LQs as needed). I try for 45 techs and 5 hangars (I don't use vehicles so I dismantle the garage when I need the space).

[Phoenix]

Well I generally sit now one additional living quarters, medic center and MAYBE one hangar for second foxtrot. generally selling most plasma clips and alloys, since you won;t be able to produce much out of these until late month two. If you get lucky and intercept 3-4 large scouts + around 6 light scouts, then you get quite a hefty income from the missions. That allows you to set up the base core somewhere in the month two. Expanding it is a bit tricky as in order to have it operational at a minimum level you need living quarters, radar, storeroom, and 3 hangars (drop ship, 1 condor, 1 foxtrot) and soldiers. That's minimum 650k in buildings,120k in soldiers, and 400k in planes... That's A LOT!!! we are talking here about 1,2 mln + whatever advanced weaponary/armor you may need. Considering the current funding it's very difficult to gather and you basically need to focus all spendings on this, and even then you need to be somewhat lucky and do not let soldiers die and get a lot of missions

[Solver]

So far expanding seems to be the hardest part. It's expensive. My initial goal when expanding would be to set up a secondary assault team, which indeed means radar + Chinook, which in turn means living quarters, stores and a hangar. Second hangar is the minimum necessary to actually shoot something down.

[hullwykearlfc]

Getting past 73mins of play without crashing would be nice :-)

[Solver]

Stability has been great for me so far. 1 crash with 18.51 HF3, and zero since going on Steam.

[Phoenix]

Well I've managed to get the second base operational and running at around 18th October

1) Got luck because I had around 4-5 Large scout missions in September, which earn some hefty cash + 3-4 light scouts

2) Had to sell around 100 alloys 40 plasma clips and 4 power cores

3) In the first base I've built only 1 additional living quarters + medical center

4) I have 16 soldiers which i try to rotate, 15 scientists, 15 engineers

5) I've manufactured only one foxtrot ASAP in the main base, did not buy any additional condors and did not build any additional hangars in the main base

6) nothing manufactured so far aside of one foxtrot, despite having access to scout car, jackal, wolf, buzzard armors, all laser weapon types

By the end of October I have 3 active hangars in the secondary base, store room, radar, living quarters, and two additional hangars. In the main base I am building 5th hangar, because more fighters start to appear on the map so having 3 interceptors + 1 torpedo carrier seems a good idea.

The main base has staff of 15 scientists and engineers, 16 soldiers, while the secondary base has 12 soldiers so far, but soon will expand to 16 as well. The corvettes are the main source of income now, trying to crash land them all the time. Still avoiding night time missions though.

Research looks good, now I have only left alien electronics, two advanced plasma weapons, and interogations of Caesan, Sembillian, Hariidan, Reaper

After these projects will be completed, I guess there will be this electorshock grenade, Corsair interceptor, and Scimtar tank, plus all the plasma weaponry for humans, but these are projects for November, and I guess that by December I should have a fleet of corsairs ready, laser weapons equipped on all soldiers and some armor on a few of them.

Tactical mission squads consist of:

4 riflemen (assault rifles and some grenades)

2 snipers (precision rifles)

2 heavies (either 2 LMGs or 1 LMG + 1 Rocket Launcher)

Usually I make sweep of the map with two squads of 4 men, sometimes I wait for the other squad if I see that there might be some fire fight where the other squad can get a flanking position on appearing aliens.

I was rushing this build so there was some save scumming, but it's doable even without it, just didn't want to work on this longer than needed to check the "fast secondary base" project.