X-Com Diary – Arms Dealing for Fun and Profit

As you may recall from last time, we had just finished our first engagement with the aliens and defeated them without losing a man, pretty good going I think. This week I’m going to talk to you about loot, research and manufacturing for profit. Don’t worry though, we’ll also be taking on another battle.

First off, loot:

Every time you win an engagement on the battlescape, your operatives loot the area for resources, weapons, alien technology, basically anything they can get their hands on. Most of this can be researched or sold, to varying degrees of usefulness.  Here’s a quick summary of things you’re likely to encounter.

Alien Corpses – Any dead aliens, whether they died in the crash or in the fighting, will be recovered as corpses. Autopsying these corpses can get you in game hints on the characteristics of the races (more on alien races in a future instalment), something that won’t be that useful to you if you’re reading this, so it’s best to sell them. Exactly who keeps buying all these alien corpses is uncertain, but they certainly pay good money, so it’s unwise to speculate.

Live Aliens – Any alien you deliberately or accidentally stun is captured alive, if you don’t have a facility to hold them they er… disappear. Well it’s not like Chrysalids ever signed up to the Geneva Convention I guess. There are four unique technologies that can only be unlocked by researching aliens. Capturing an alien navigator gets you the hyperwave decoder, which is the be all and end all of radar surveillance. Capturing an alien leader and commander (they aren’t the same thing) give you two research topics that, when both finished, unlock the final mission. Capturing a psychic alien (any Ethereal or a Sectoid Commander or Leader) will allow you to research psy labs, which are a very potent weapon in your battle against the alien menace.

Alien Weapons – Any weapons the aliens had on them will also be recovered, you cannot use alien weapons unless you research them. Aliens carry Plasma Pistols, Plasma Rifles, Heavy Plasma Guns, Small Launchers and Blaster Launchers. Pistols and Rifles, though better than their laser counterparts, will eventually stop being carried, forcing you to manufacture your own ammo, the Heavy Plasma however continues to be used throughout the game and will eventually become your main rifle. Blaster Launcher are remote controlled rocket launchers, while Small Launchers are rocket launchers that stun rather than kill. In general Heavy Plasma and Blaster Launchers are worth researching, Small Launchers are handy if you haven’t yet captured the requisite live aliens and Plasma Pistols and Rifles probably aren’t worth it and can be sold. Don’t worry, if you can’t figure out how to use them I’m sure none of your buyers can.

Alien Alloys – One of two raw resources you can find from UFOs. Alien Alloys, once researched, will allow you to build personal armour, the first armour available to your troops, and is consumed when manufacturing the armours. As such it is very handy in the early game, but over time rapidly becomes less useful but still handy for ship hulls and the like. You can make your own alloys, but you find so many over the course of the game that it’s simply not worth doing so.

Elerium-115 – The second resource, and by far the most important, Elerium is used to build advanced armours and to build and fuel your advanced aircraft. Never sell Elerium! You can’t make it and it’s too important. Just stockpile it, build new stores if you have to, you might not be using it in the early game, but you’ll be dependant on it later on. Once you’ve gotten laser tech and personal armour, start researching Elerium – it will open up lots of new technological possibilities.

UFO Navigation/Power – Researching both of these (along with Elerium and Alien Alloys) will allow you to start building new ships. Both can be built at home using Alien Alloys, but you shouldn’t need to as you only need one navigation and one power source per ship. Keep a few around in storage for when you do plan to build more, then sell the rest.

All pretty simple, now you know what to do with the stuff you get after each mission. As the game progresses loot and manufacturing will provide most of your income as you expand your empire.

How does manufacturing work? Well I’m glad you asked!

You may remember that last time around I said I’d be making lasers. That was actually a little inaccurately, as I’d produced a couple of laser weapons by the time that fight had begun, but I forgot to load them into the skyranger. Shortly before the battle started I saw this:

With both pistols and rifles researched, I could start production to outfit my team with the new weapons. This is all pretty obvious, you just go to the manufacturing screen, pick what you want and the number and slot as many engineers as you want in it (it’s probably best just to get all of them working on one thing). Making enough weapons and items for your team to use is simple, the real questions start once you’ve already done that.

You see, some items can be manufactured for less money than they sell for, allowing you to build them continuously and generate profits to run your organisation. You can start this as soon as you’ve researched something to build and it’s one of your most reliable sources of income. Never leave your engineers idle, always have them making things.

What should they make? Well this handy table explains things:

Monthly profits, based on a one-workshop operation. Figures in thousands (000′s) where noted.

Don’t sweat if that looks complicated, only two things are important; the higher up the list the thing you’re building is, the better, and don’t build anything with minus profits unless you have to (to outfit your team with). As you can see from this breakdown I could have researched motion sensors early in order to secure a strong income, but I’m not too bothered about that because I can still make a profit on laser rifles while I research the almighty laser cannon.

Again, it’s best not to think too much about exactly who is buying these things off you, I like to content myself with the fact that laser cannons are a nowhere near as good as regular missiles anyway and I’m not flogging anywhere near enough rifles to take over even a small African country.

Anyway, I decide to hold off on personal armour for now and chuck my research into the (sadly useless) Heavy Laser in prep for the ever profitable Laser Cannon. Meanwhile the UFO alarm goes off. Time to field test these puppies!

Here we go. I still haven’t figured out how to re-order people in the Skyranger with X-Com Util, so you’re stuck in your old positions, but at least you have potent laser weapons to help you out.

Once again we seem to have ended up fighting at night. The tank covers the team as they disembark the Skyranger, Paul and Craig Lam hunker down by the wheel bases while Ed and Craig Lager use the tank for cover. As we wait out between turns a small grey alien pops out from inside a farmhouse and takes a shot at Scout Lam, thankfully he only gets one long range effort and it skews well wide. Sniper Senior dismounts the ramp and takes his shot, failing to hit the alien but instead managing to hit the broad side of the barn he was standing in front of, which I guess is something. Best shot in the team my arse. Soldier Cobbett is forced to get out the other side and take care of business, which he does. Scratch one alien.

The lads stay put by the plane while the tank is dispatched. It’s quickly shot in the back by an alien perched awkwardly on a rooftop. I’m beginning to think this is standard Sectoid military practice. Sadly none of the Snipers or Soldiers are in a position to hit him, so it’s up to Scout Lam, wielding a pistol. The thing about laser pistols is that they’re much more inaccurate than rifles, but a snap shot costs a tiny amount of TUs, this lets Lam fire off an impressive number of shots, most miss, but two strike home and do their duty. Another one bites the dust.

It’s still pitch black, keeping me on my toes, so I hold my men in position and scout around using the tank. My patience is finally rewarded when I see an alien scuttle inside the UFO, closing the door behind him.

Doors. It had to be doors.

Like I said last time, doors can be lethal in X-Com, anyone opening one is liable to get shot, and I don’t yet have the weapons to blast my way inside. Nevertheless Soldiers Cobbett, Lager, Fenning and Kim, plus Heavy Edwards, move up to deal with the situation, go with god boys.

First off, I line up a couple of men with firing arcs to the side of the door, this means I’ll scythe down any aliens that decide to get out while I’m setting up, then I begin to breach. Straws are drawn, Mr Fenning will be the one to open the door and find…

Nothing. Phew. He and Craig scramble to the corners to give me a firebase inside the ship. Just after they get inside an alien pops his head out of one of the internal doors and Ed, a firm believer in the “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” school of combat, lets fly with a barrage of shots. Narrowly missing Craig but taking care of his target.

However there’s still some aliens left, I send the tank to scout the remaining outside areas while the team slowly move further into the UFO. No sooner have I started than not one but too aliens walk out of the same door as the last one and get scythed down by Ed’s reaction fire, taking his personal kill tally to an impressive three for the battle and four total. The man’s a machine.

That’s the last one too and we’re back to the geoscape. I stick to the laser path for now but I’ll be building armour shortly and I’ve already collected a few good alien weapons. Soon they’ll see – we’re not trapped on this planet with them, they’re trapped on this planet with us.