Cult outpost - cult base

[hubaj]

Hi guys

During my playthrough (Veteran difficulty, X-com files 0.9.6) I am having some difficulty finding cult bases. As I understood from the description in game, after you research “cult name” operations, the regular outposts should stop appearing (supposedly council salvage corps should take care of them) and you should be getting cult bases instead of them. However I have all the operations researched, the cult outposts still appear. Is that a bug? Can I somehow edit my savegame to stop lower level outposts from appearing and have just the bases?
I feel its hampering my progress to Promotion III. Only HQ I managed to research is Red Dawn (I got Red Dawn coordinator from Durathread manufacture), and that is incredibly tough, cannot manage to do it with 8 guys from Dragonfly. Now I am in December 1998 and I am starting to fear I won´t be able to get to Promotion III before the invasion begins. And I read somewhere that is really bad.

[Solarius Scorch]

During my playthrough (Veteran difficulty, X-com files 0.9.6) I am having some difficulty finding cult bases. As I understood from the description in game, after you research “cult name” operations, the regular outposts should stop appearing (supposedly council salvage corps should take care of them) and you should be getting cult bases instead of them. However I have all the operations researched, the cult outposts still appear. Is that a bug? Can I somehow edit my savegame to stop lower level outposts from appearing and have just the bases?

Researching cult operations disables safehouse missions (the "small house"), not hideouts.

I feel its hampering my progress to Promotion III. Only HQ I managed to research is Red Dawn (I got Red Dawn coordinator from Durathread manufacture), and that is incredibly tough, cannot manage to do it with 8 guys from Dragonfly. Now I am in December 1998 and I am starting to fear I won´t be able to get to Promotion III before the invasion begins. And I read somewhere that is really bad.

Don't believe everything you read.
A personal friend of mine (not on the forums) is currently in 2000 and he still hasn't closed any cult either (and doesn't have Promotion III). He's still doing fine.
I agree Red Dawn HQ is really hard with 8 people. But is it doable? I would say yes, as long as you have alloy vests and good men. Still, luck plays a significant role.

[legionof1]

Yeah HQs are doable with 8, i managed all 4 with only 8 agents my first run, though dagon was a near thing. Gilldogs+jungle can get very messy.

[hubaj]

Researching cult operations disables safehouse missions (the "small house"), not hideouts.

Oh that explains it. I didn´t realize there is a difference there. On each of these missions (safehouse or hideout) I managed to finish without ever entering the house, they always surrender before that. So I never noticed there was difference in house size. Basically it was just bad luck, that I didn´t get any bases. I was making sure everything was fine with my game.

I agree Red Dawn HQ is really hard with 8 people. But is it doable? I would say yes, as long as you have alloy vests and good men. Still, luck plays a significant role.

I am not saying it’s not doable, but currently I am stuck with armored vests (only landed UFO I got was way at the beginning, still with the basic pistols and just two agents). So if I attempt to do it with 8 guys, it will be a close thing and probably result in losses among my veterans I do not want to accept.

By coincidence I built my second base fairly close to the Red Dawn HQ, within Osprey range. So basically my plan is to wait for them to appear, load Osprey with my veterans and couple of rookies for cannon fodder and fight it out with 16 guys.

Thanks for the answers and most of all thanks for the great mod.