I guess i will chip in with one thicc of a post.
This is spoiler free unless you peek at it1) Shotguns are the best early game weapon vs most enemies
Shotguns in X-Files have larger range than you would think, not the small one. The one you can unlock very early on, the long one that can fire AP rounds.
- Can kill most enemies with snapfire in 1-2 hits, pretty much one hits smaller creatures like spiders and most low-tier cultists, also low TU to snap fire compared to what it can do
- Cheap ammo, can switch to AP rounds
- Can fire baton shells that can stun targets so you can simply switch ammo on the flight if you want to take someone and you dont need to bother with tasers or stunrods
Shotguns also have advanced variations so its not like this weapon type will disappear. There are also some weapons that are actually pistols or cannons that can fire shotgun ammo.
2) Dossiers give council rating boosts
You know, if you are lazy, you can spend an entire month doing the absolute minimum and focus on research and training and make up the score to be in positive by researching dossiers.
3) Dont ignore melee weapons
As trashy as they might look like, stabby and smashy tools are actually insanely lethal because a damage type like Cutting is hardly protected against. Against sectoids you might even see that your agent simply caved his skull in with his weapon stock or just with hand to hand combat.
Mini tip - Give your heavy weapon troops something like a knife when you enter close quaters like UFO interiors. They will use their secondary weapon instead of trying to smash the enemy with the weapon and a precise Tritanium knife will eviserate sectoids extremely quickly and its really cheap TU wise so there will be many stabs.
Mini tip 2 - Your armour dictates hand to hand combat damage.
Mini tip 3 - While
look cool i think they are abit of a overkill in the game and have absurd TU costs. Tritanium swords and stabbas are enough.
Mini tip 4 - The best melee weapon in the game is the
this thing recieves damage from psi strenght on top and can be used in one arm compared to 2 with normal variation. And this thing will kill majority of the game enemies in one or two slices.
4) You can reverse engineer armours in general from certain enemy...
Mini tip - thermal weapons (Lasers/Plasma/fire) or really large explosives can destroy bodies so try to switch to melee, stun or balistic weapons if you want the corpse
- The flying Stormtrooper armour, aside from really hefty stats, aim boost and also jetpack !
- The powerarmour you get from the black hefty gents with gasmasks, this is one of the top tier armours in the game btw that has bonus carrying capacity on top of massive armour so your soldier can carry entire inventory worth of rockets, mortars and blaster weapons
Mini tip 2 - When fighting monsters, give your stormtrooper a flamethrower and simply hover over enemy heads and boil them. Facing melee enemies ? Well too bad for them, even if they have ranged attack like Quil boar they wont even dent his armour
Mini tip 3 - The tech behind power armours and Stormtrooper is ....
5) Some weapons you should NOT overlook
Mortar - Requires really strong soldier to carry and set up time, but its not uncommon to fire a mortar and then hear the screams of 6-8 enemies dying at once on the other side of the map as a mortar shell just leveled a floor on a clinic. Can fire incendiary rounds and smoke rounds too.
Mine - This is rather specific tool for specific job. You can actually throw mines, use them to secure possible doorways, the mine should be able to one shot pretty much any humanoid enemy par for the heavy armour dudes. Mines proved themselves during Lotus HQ raid since you can turn those corridors to death traps for ninja's to trigger. See that door there ? Chuck a mine there... just in case.
Tank/sectopod's laser cannon - This thing actually.... have you seen how much damage it does ? Like it will one hit KO majority of game's units. Yours included unless you are decked out in powerarmour or
Flamethrowers - High risk, high reward weapon type due to low range.
and it also causes panic. Once you get a flying armour of any kind, this weapon will ascend to god-tier weapon since you pretty much eliminated its main weakness. Also burning enemies is a good way to prevent any unwanted... "Turning" so they stay dead.
Incendiary weapons in general - Despite their lower damage, them being able to panic enemies is just great. Its also a great way to flush people from cover
Flashbangs - Causes hefty stat penalties and reduced TU's on victims, can be used in undercover missions.
6) Read carefully what you can bring.
Some missions require specific arsenal, for example you need scientist outfit to enter
Mini tip : Delay
you get a sectopod. Sectopod has such a absurd armour that he will be pretty much invincible to the small laser fire,
Mini tip 2: Powerarmour is rather universal, like until you research it yourself you dont even know its stats, let alone that it can be used ... like underwater
7) You can pretty much overpower everything with any weapon type if you try hard enough.
robots getting riddled with buckshots, massive monsters being withered away by pistol fire.... but i would suggest having more diverse arsenal.
8 ) Diverse but focused troops.
Due to the absurd number of enemies in this mod, having your vehicle loaded with various weapons is the key to victory. And due to how soldiers can improve their skills when fighting with particular weapons you should consider making your own classes. I do it by simply renaming my troops with the role. So they are like Ronald "Sapper" Mcburger since X-Files doesnt have stat strings you can do it yourself.
In general
Rifleman - does rifle stuff, good at short to medium range
Assault - Does the SMG job
Support - Shotguns and smoke cover
Sapper - Battlefield control, to lay mines and to create new doors with dynamite.
Grenadier - Rifleman with grenades
Demolisher - Grenade launcher,
Gunner - Machineguns, Heavy Weapons Operatives
you get the idea how these classes work.
Since you see these "nicknames" on the agent overview menu you can easily draft a specific squad.
Do i face monsters ? Then gunners, HWO's and rifleman should be present due to large number of melee enemies
Am i about to raid a cult HQ ? Then sappers, assaults and supports should be present in larger quantity.
Thankfully one of the good things about old XCOM's when compared to XCOM 1 or 2 is that your classes are all made up, nothing stops a sapper from picking a minigun, supports using rifles...
9) It might be better to not research certain things until you know you wont need them.
10) Your starting position matters !
Cults have bases around the world, most vehicles have limited range of operation.
Bad spots
South America - Too far away from Europe and Asia
Africa - No cult starts in Africa
Arctic - Too far away from cults
Good spots
Europe - Somewhat central access to most places of the world, i had my base in Athens, Greece. But will slightly struggle with reaching the US mainland
Asia, Japan - This is a really good spot, you somewhat have of a access to US to get Exalt personal, Red Dawn and Lotus are at your doorstep but Europe is harder.
The starting position in Japan is also essential since you can reach the Red Dawn HQ with larger- capacity vehicle like the Helicopter so its not 4vs+60.
Once you have a hefty income make new bases to cover other continents too. Having a base in Europe and US is suggested so you can launch mission from there too to take out the cults
11) Go for Red Dawn first
Red Dawn is the easiest cult to destroy, they are ex-USSR personal and they dont use psionics or high tech weapons. You also get a essential tech from them. I saw that in the newest patch note that they will have armoured cars outside so thats... abit harder but still easier than other factions. You will need to raid outposts to gather explosives for this then. Some dynamites, maybe a RPG launcher there to take out those cars. You cannot buy these things yet so you will need to loot them from their safe houses.
12) Night missions ?
I would say, NO. Especially against creatures.
BUT, against Humans, then thats different story since they wont see a shit either.
First thing, from top of my head, Dagon cultists have better eye sight in the dark than your troops by default so they will be able to fire at your barely armoured troops out of your line of sight. Some armours make you more stealhy (like XCOM coveralls, but you need a tech from Red Dawn to make them).
13) Skip your turn number 1 when facing ranged enemies while you are in your vehicle
So on turn 2, you wont get riddled with bullets from reaction fire the moment you exit your vehicle
14) Rush for Kitsune once you research it.
Kitsune is a super, one of a kind aircraft you can make. This thing has global range, can carry alot of troops at once, even heavy weapon platforms like tanks and can fight back if you give it some weapons. It also runs on standard aircraft fuel.
Protect this ship with your life since you wont get anything even close to speed and carry capacity until later on.
15) Use spare med-packs on civilians that are about to die
If you have spare reserves, you can prevent civilans from dying from bloodloss by just stabilising them like your troops.
16) Fighting alongside AI
Some missions will have more than 1 party involved, police or military will fight against whoever is their enemy and XCOM will be there to help them. So be aware of the fact that AI is dumb as a stump and you might see the military personal accidentally shooting your troops in the back or with your troop reaction fire so try to scatter and get in to positions like next to a wall so these dumbasses wont walk behind them and accidentally shoot them.
17) No reason to stockpile dead bodies once you butchered them up, the blood plasma for the 20 charge medkits is quite later on and you can simply sacrifice some elerium to make it anyway. So sell them for cash. Live captures sell for more.
18) The whole capturing alive thingy
Well it tells you more about the thing and some story lines require live captures but in general what it tells you are details that i havent found that interesting, most things you will hear that this creature is vulnerable to fire. But its not like thats a relevant information if it dies to 2 snap fires from a shotgun or a single volley from a machinegun. And you can guess which enemies wont be easy to kill with guns the moment you see them. Heavy armour ? Better whip out that C4 or RPG, this thing is hundreds of small entities ? Get the flamer ready !.
So TLDR - Dont push yourself over it too much, until X-Files adds more incentive for live captures.
19) Panicking or soon to be MC'ed troops
If you see aliens attempting to mind control your trooper (They only try this if there is a chance for them being able to do it, so if your entire squad is really mentally stabile they wont even bother) you must disarm him to prevent massacres. Drop his inventory and move him somewhere, lock him up in a barn or a house. If he gets MC'ed then he will either wander around aimlessly, trying to pick up his weapons and wasting TU's or he will try to punch your troops which is a really good alternative to an elerium rocket one shotting your entire squad of 14 guys.
If the soldier is loosing it due to low sanity, disarm him too so he wont shoot your own.
20) Disarming and assisted suicide, weapon theft
Once you get your own psiops, if you know your mind control victim wont be killable by the squad, either pull the pin from his grenade and throw it under him so he kills himself or throw his weapon away and drop all of his stuff on the ground.
If you mind control ayys or you would find panicking aliens, steal their weapon to your backpack. I am pretty sure sectoids dont even have a punching attack so once they wake up they will stare at your troops they cant mind control due to high stats and they just stand there, without weapons. So your guy can walk to them and swing his stun rod at them.
21) Get a sectopod or two when possible
They are the best thing since sliced bread
22) Spread out if fighting enemies you know use explosives
Its better for a single guy to die from a plasma hit, rather than 8 dudes from a plasma grenade.
23) Dogs
Dogs are rather underwhelming, they cannot wear sufficient armour to not die from a first plasma weapon that hits them but their teeth will melt enemies extremely quickly, their bark ranged attacks also reduces time units so you can use them to protect your ranged units against charging enemies. So in close quaters they are absolute beasts since their bite does ALOT of damage.
24) Using your tanks as meatshields
Lets face it, once you get access to them you should use them to tank enemy fire. Their high armour makes them invincible to small arms fire and even some energy weapons aint gona even scratch them. Sectopod has such a large armour that the only weapon that can kill it are multiple rocket hits or heavy gauss cannon. Or heavy laser weapons.
Tanks should be enough against human enemies.
In combat, crounch behind your tank to let it soak damage aimed at your soldiers. Its also better to simply lose a tank than a good soldier
25) Which weapons should i put on a tank ?
Laser cannon is by far the best weapon i found. Infinite ammo, good medium range and massive damage (It will one hit KO most humans and creatures).
One thing you need to know is that some melee enemies have such a high damage per hit that they can even destroy your vehicles so still avoid melee combat.
26) Capturing Ayys
Most of the essential research is gated behind commanders and engineers. Live Engineers will give you research for better weapons. Use Mind Reader to check out which Alien is who.
27) Explosive entrance
Sometimes its just better to blast a wall. Tanks can destroy concrete walls with rockets or cannons (Laser too) but high explosives should be used first.
UFO hulls cannot be destroyed with standard explosives but Elerium ex and Elerium Rocket can do it so if you dont feel for charging in, simply open the UFO like a banana with elerium explosive set to 2 turns to explode while you run away with your troops.
28) Make sure to turn on "Advanced Movement" in settings (Advanced tab)
This unlocks strafing and sprint for your troops. Running is essential (Less TU to move but costs more energy). Strafing is less important.
29) Reaction fire requires "Snap Fire" mode or else the weapon cannot fire via reactions
So dont expect to see your troops using miniguns to return fire. This is also kinda why you need to give your dudes either back up weapon (Like pistol they can holster) or a melee weapon. They smack enemies at close range but they wont fire at them.
30) Most enemies will panic
This is a nice touch of realism, in short and in gameplay terms. If you kick their ass so much, you have half of the mission done for you already. The more asskicking you cause in the shortest time span the more chaos it will do to enemy morale. This will become apparent once your weapons and armour gets way better than what enemies can stand a chance against. Even aliens can panic so use them running around to steal their weapons and capturing them with stun weapons. Even animals can go berserk or rattle on the spot but this is rare.
31) Enemies can and will surrender
If they are human/Human-ish, then if you kick their ass hard enough or you massacred most of them on the map. The survivors might surrender to XCOM. I would suggest turning on the automatic battle end in the advanced settings so you dont like spend a turn massacring enemies that have surrendered.
Its sometimes hard to spot if the enemy without weapon has recently panicked or he has surrendered, if he stands still during their turn then he is your captive now and he will go to your funhouse for questioning via research.
One important thing is, if there is even a single robot enemy on the map, enemies wont surrender. So if you face human and robot fighting force. You need to ensure that all robots are destroyed.
32) AI units need abit of aim grinding
AI driven vehicles you can build start with awful accuracy but they can improve by simply hitting stuff and killing them.
33) Always have these items in your landing craft
- Medkits (Self explanatory)
- Explosives or some sort of terrain removal tool. Some melee weapons like Kukri can remove some terrain like folliage while laser or plasma cutters will destroy things like walls. There are certain levels where you must destroy terrain to reach enemies.)
- Flamethrower (Some enemies have massive resistances towards certain damage types, but fire tends to work too well against them)
- Melee weapons ( Great backup weapons, also worthwile if you discover that the map is really closed up so using rocket launchers and miniguns isnt worth it)
- Some backup ranged weapons (Like if you arm your entire team with laser weapons, drop in some rifles and machineguns, you know, in case you encounter an enemy that takes like 50% only damage from laser weapons but gets 120% from bullets)
- Flashlights and flares (Self explanatory)
34) The ultimate mindcontrol
If you want to squeeze as much mind control potential your soldier has then equip him with Stormtrooper armour. There is an advanced version of the amplifier that lets you, just like ayys mind control dudes through obstacles. This amp requires both hands but you can give your soldier a pistol that can be quickly holstered with low TU cost. With Stormtrooper (Or any flying armour) you should simply land him on a rooftop, he should be able to mind control everyone in that building. You can capture small UFO's with this because once you psi-cap a Sectoid you can use him to psi-spot other aliens (Through obstacles) so your psioperative can get em too. Like with 2 psiops you can capture around 6 aliens in one turn, great way to clear out the final rooms of UFO.
Edit1: 04.06.2020 Added more tips (24-29)
Edit2: 08.06.2020 Added more tips (30-32)
Edit3: 13.06.2020 Added more tips (33-34)[/list]
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Mass accelerators and Gauss weapons have very odd aquisition. For a good chunk of the game i had just giant piles of these weapons from raiding MiB bases yet i couldnt research them and it was really frustrating me, until i raided Osiron freighter and looted something which opened everything.