X-Com: UFO Defense

- When you begin your game, begin building more Living Quarters and General Stores. You'll need them for more Scientists and all the loot you'll be shortly aquiring.

- Change both Interceptors' weaponry so they use Avalanche Missles; these are longer range than most UFO beams and should take out all UFOs until you can get Plasma Beams.

- Understand that units are expendable; it is not uncommon to have 50% mortality rates for new players. Just be sure to buy more Rookies.

- You can right click to have a unit turn and look. The Skyranger has windows allowing you to see a good portion of the map simply by right clicking.

- If you are finding yourself running out of ammo clips after missions, unload as many clips before the end of the mission. The game reads any clip currently in a gun as completely expended if even one shot as been fired from it. Alternatively, ammo clips not in a gun after the mission is finished counts as a full clip, even if only one shot remains.

- Never, ever, EVER sell Elerium-115. This is the basis of making plasma clips and advanced aircraft fuel. You cannot buy or make it; you must recover it from UFOs or alien bases.

- Terror missions are hard in the early game, especially for new players. If you think you cannot handle a terror mission, go there anyway and abort the mission on the first turn. Though you'll recieve a bad score, the penalty for allowing a terror mission to go unchecked is much worse.

- The best starting places for your first base is America or Europe. The surrounding countries contribute a large amount of money to your cause every month. Do good and they will increase funding.

- Try to research Laser weapons as soon as possible. They are a large upgrade in terms of damage and speed, and they don't use ammo to boot. Rifles are best for combat, pistols are manufactured in bulk to sell for a good early profit, and heavy laser is regarded as useless due to lack of auto-shot.(This is a filthy lie. Laser weapons might be better than Rifles, but relatively speaking they are completely useless. By the time you're done researching them and have a batch manufactured, you should be almost done researching Plasma Cannons.)

- Auto shot. Use it, learn it, love it. It fires three shots right after each other, statstically increasing your chance at actually hitting the target. In some cases where ammo or risk of secondary explosions is high, Aimed shot may be better. Maybe.

- Try to keep your scientists researching and your engineerings manufacturing 24/7. Shoot down and recover every UFO you can until you think you have a firm grasp on the game. X-Com is a big game and it will take a few sessions before you feel like you know what you're doing.

- Plasma Cannons are the best weapons in the game. They have stats (accuracy and TU cost) comparable to or better than the Rifle, but they deal damage equivalent to a Heavy Laser. Ammunition for Plasma Cannons is pretty ubiquitous, too. Within a couple months of the start of the game, you should have all your soldiers carrying Plasma Cannons all of the time.

- Get lasers, fuck the haters. Keep at least one laser rifle in your squad at all times, right up until the end of the game. You will thank me when you run into your first Sectopod/Cyberdisc. Lasers utterly destroy the mechs in 2-3 hits vs. 5-6 Heavy Plasma shots.

- Ignore all the talk about Heavy Lasers and Laser cannons. Neither is worth researching, even though Laser Cannons have the highest profit margin. Your best seller early on is Motion Scanners, not Laser Pistols. Once you're well down the line of research and your engineers need more stuff to research, research the big Laser weapons and convert your manufacturing wing to that.

- Each Lab can hold 50 Scientists. A given Workshop can only hold about 30 Engineers, because whatever they're building takes up space. Never have excess personnel. If they're not working, they should be fired.

- Capture an alien ASAP and research and build an Alien Containment. It will cost you a lot of soldiers, but it's worth the effort.

- Get the Stun Launcher as fast as possible. If anything larger than the cross-shaped UFO lands or crashes, try to stun every alien inside until you get a Navigator. Immediately research a Hyperwave Decoder.

- Get a damn Hyperwave Decoder as soon as you can. Seriously, do it.

- Electroflares are reusable. You never need more than 12 of them, ever. Do not waste your space with more.

- In base defense, the game automatically gives you the first 256 items in your base inventory, regardless of whether you have better stuff. The list follows your sell screen, so unload all those crappy rifles and pistols, and don't fill your inventory with 80 electroflares (see above) and 20 stun rods.

- If you're getting sick of Battleships attacking your base in the late game, build 3 Fusion Ball Launchers and a Grav Shield. This is guaranteed to destroy any and all ships that ever attack your base. Ever.

- 2 Alien grenades or high explosives going off in the same spot can blast a hole in the wall of a UFO. This is much cheaper than using a blaster bomb, and a lot easier to do early on. Manipulate the timers to make them go off in the same round.

- Crouching raises your accuracy and makes you harder to hit. Always save at least 4 TUs to make everyone crouch at the end of a round. Crouch before you fire if the shot will end your round.

- Equipping something in your other hand when you have a two-handed gun will lower your accuracy. Avoid when possible. Pistols and Stun Rods are the only 1 handed weapons. Psi-Amps and Mind Probes don't even use accuracy, so you can equip both at the same time.

- Your first base should be in either North America or Europe. Before you start building alien craft you should build a second base in Antarctica. Fill it with Living Quarters, Labs, Workshops, and Alien Containment, and give it 1 Hangar. Put ALL of your scientists and engineers here, then remove all your Labs and such from Base 1, excluding the Alien Containment. Use the extra space for more storage and Psi Labs, and rearrange the base so that the Elevator and Hangars all have one entrance to the rest of base. Line this entrance with your storage and living quarters, because that is where your soldiers will spawn in a base defense. Transfer stuff back and forth, it's a lot more efficient and the aliens will never find your base in the middle of the south pole. Add some defenses later on.

- You can rename soldiers. Get into the habit of going through their stats to figure out their strengths and weaknesses, then adjust their name so it's easier to outfit them on missions. Someone with high Throwing might get a De (for Demolitions) tag after their name, which means you give them extra grenades. At the least, make sure you label your Psionic guys, and don't let them die. Everyone else is expendable, but a well trained Psi is worth more than most of your team. Remember that the size and weight of weapons affects Stamina, so don't give big guns to guys with low energy, unless you're not planning on having them move around too much. Never give an AoE weapon to someone with a weak Psi Defense.

- Your best Psi ops are NOT expendable. Keep them in the Skyranger/Avenger, and you only ever need two of them. Only one of them needs a Mind Probe, but both need Psi Amps. Psionics do not need line of sight to work, so they can attack and control an alien anywhere on the map from their relatively safe spot.

- Your guy with the lowest stamina but decent accuracy works as a good Blaster Launcher/Sentry at the back of the Skyranger/Avenger. Give him a Plasma Pistol to help defend the Psis. You can reach almost anywhere on any map with the 9 waypoints you get, so he doesn't need to move.

- If you see a black crabby thing during a terror mission involving Snakemen, RUN AWAY. Don't ever get near those things.

- There are two things that can kill you--having too many major countries surrender to the aliens, and not having enough money to put up a fight. These are generally linked, although manufacturing can keep you in the black even with a small number of supporters.

- As other posters have stated, pick the US or Europe for your first base. Personally, I choose Europe--western Germany or Switzerland. Why? Two reasons. First, Europe as a whole provides slightly more money than North America early on, and if you keep them happy, they top out at a higher level of funding, too. Second, If you base in the US, Europe will tend to surrender before the end of the first year unless you really hustle to defend them (which is hard to do before you get alien ships, and even then eats up precious Elerium). If you base in Europe, the US tends to support you (and even pay you a little) for close to a whole year even if you refuse to ever give them the time of day.

- Replace your fighter weapons with Avalanche missiles. Range matters. I never use anything but Avalanches and plasma cannons.

- Don't pass up a chance to gain Elerium. Don't throw grenades around intact generators. Do consider letting an alien base sit for a while so you can attack the landed supply ships for their precious intact generators full of Elerium.

- Don't be afraid to pass on the first couple of Terror missions. Especially if they are on the other side of the world. Especially if you estimate that you will arrive at night.

- Stay away from the chrysalids.

- Research Heavy Plasma/clips as soon as you can, as aliens start dropping them like candy. The personal armor line is also critical to actually keeping the rare high-skilled troops (you'll need them).

- Stay away from the chrysalids.

- In the end, victory goes to whoever makes the best use of Blaster Bombs.

- Helpful Wiki.

- Remember that when you hire a soldier/scientist/engineer, this is not a one-time payment, but the cost PER MONTH. Plan accordingly. You pay everyone at the end of the month, so if it's like 20th, delay hiring scientists/engineers until the 1st if you can.

- You can start projects for valuable items (like UFO components or Mind Probes) with 0 scientists. IIRC this way you can sell all items of their kind and still research it when able.

- Manufacture a lot of laser rifles (heavy lasers suck), ship them to secondary bases as defensive weapons. Getting stuck with 2 million clips and no guns (or vice versa) suck.

- Tanks suck, get more rookies.

- Hyperwave Decoder is indeed awesome, even if you can't down the larger UFOs like Battleships you will still learn their mission and can plan ahead for a new alien base or terror site.

- Also, you can still attack Battleships or whatever. Depending on their mission/speed you can set the Skyranger to standoff and see if it lands. Of course, then you have to deal with its full crew and terror units.

- DO NOT ignore terror sites, ever. If you absolutely have to, go there and take off immediately, you'll lose like half the points you'd lose for ignoring the mission.

- It can be useful to research multiple specialists (Leaders, Medics, Navigators, Engineers) as they fill your Ufopedia with missions/ships/new alien races. Other than that, you'll have to research them eventually to free up place in the Alien Containment as it can hold like 10 aliens (don't remember if that's 10 creatures or 10 race/job types). Avoid taking Soldiers alive if you already have that species researched.

- Learn to manufacture and sell. Laser Cannons are one of the best sources of income but they require research. Also, keep selling everything alien you're not planning to use in the immediate future. This includes plasma weapons, mind probes (a lot of money), UFO components, corpses, basically everything that takes precious precious space in your general stores. EXCEPTION: Do NOT sell Elerium unless you have like 4000 units. This is one resource you cannot reproduce and your best ships will use it for fuel.

- If you discover an alien base you can keep it and raid supply UFOs landing nearby. They're excellent cash cows. Decoder comes in handy, you don't want to mistake a Battleship for a supply craft.

- At the start of each mission throw a smoke grenade out the back of the skyranger and end the turn. The aliens start with full ap and often facing your ship, this means they will reaction fire the hell out of you as you unload. When you end the turn they will burn ap moving which means the first out the door might make it to the bottom of the ramp in one piece.

- Starting out everyone is expendable. You can always hire more rookies but if funding nations get pissed you are fucked.

- Once you get some missions under your belt your veterans are slightly less expendable. Use rookies to scout and veterans to snipe. The rookies will probably mostly die, just remember to assign more rookies to the skyranger when you get back to base.

- Grenades are even cheaper than rookies. Not sure if a house has an alien in it? Lob grenades at it until you hear the enemy die or can see out the other side.

- If a base is attacked and you have no soldiers present its an automatic loss. Tanks cannot defend a base on their own. Soldiers deployed in a skyranger can't defend the base. Soldiers in transit can't defend the base. Even your research/manufacturing bases should have some rookies with laser rifles and some tanks to defend it.

- Tanks are not totally worthless. They don't cause morale loss when they die so they make decent scouts if you can't send an officer to shore up morale. Also one of the fan patches make them decent stat wise.

- Slightly cheaty but if you are having lots of money problems relocate all your scientists and engineers on the last day of each month. Any unit in transit when the payroll is due won't get paid. If you have a lot of scientists and engineers this can save you a ton of money. It will suspend research and construction until they get back to where they came from so its not without drawbacks, and you need at least 2 bases with living quarters, etc.

- Try and resist the urge to save scum. I try and save only as needed and not reload even if things go poorly. You will take many more casualties but that's what x-com is all about.

- I save at the start of every battle before moving anything in case the very first action is a blasterbomb going off in the skyranger killing everyone. I'm just not that hardcore.

- Use the "reserve TUs" buttons to make sure your guys have some TUs left for reaction fire

- Try to engage in the day when possible; the aliens can see in the dark, you can't. Get used to how long it takes for the Skyranger to get somewhere and time it to arrive in sunlight.

- Your operatives can dual-wield weapons, but carrying lots of weight makes them burn TUs faster and using a two-handed weapon in one hand reduces accuracy. Don't do what I did and set everyone up with rifle+grenade to start with; have them carry the grenade on the belt until it's needed.

- Explosives are your friend. It'll be a while before you can blast holes in a UFO hull, but leveling a building that aliens are hiding in is always safer than going in after them.

- speaking of explosives, they tend to be heavy. Give the rocket launcher to the guy with high strength; it'll slow him down less.

- Save at least one of each thing you find to research, and sell the rest unless you have a use for it. Never sell Elerium-115 (you may not have a use for it now but you'll want as much as you can get later).

- Move systemically and completely clear out areas. It's the worst thing to have one enemy left on the map when you're sure you've checked everything.

- Never just send one person out on their own. They'll get killed and you won't be able to see the enemy which killed them. Try to send out scouts with people with high accuracy covering them.

- You don't lose points for environmental destruction. So if you want to take a shortcut, make one. This works really well with lasers since they have infinite ammo.

- Crouching's important. It improves your aim and makes you a smaller target.

- People are paid their full salary at the end of the month no matter when they arrived. So try to do your recruiting so that they arrive at the beginning of the month if possible. Also, if I recall correctly, salary isn't calculated for people being transferred between bases, so if you don't have them doing anything and are hard up for cash, shuffle them around.

- Sell whatever you're not going to use for a while. Unless it's elerium, don't sell that.

- This game is not kind. You will lose battles, you will go through lots of recruits.