Research Wall

[Bambu]

Hey, progress has been good in my save. It seems the game has been updated, so I should say that my current save is from before the most recent update.

I'm at a wall with research in the March of 2000. There's nothing left to research, although I feel fairly certain I don't have it all done yet since I have many weapons I can't make yet- no laser weapons, no mass-drivers, no plasmas. So most of my soldiers are still using BlackOps stuff or Pulse weapons. My armor is capped to Cyber Armor.

I recognize that there's a tech tree, but it's not easily parsable for the information I want, which is essentially what should I be on the lookout for to meaningfully progress? I can upload my save if necessary, but short of that I can say that I've done an alien colony (and thus have the Tritanium Foundry up and running), I'm working on Psi-Amps now as the final research option available across my three labs, I've never gotten an underwater mission and I've done sparingly few ghost missions (enough to get some captives and their weapons, but never anything like the asylum ghosts).

I know for a fact I'm missing a couple MAGMA messages, too. I assume I need to do specific missions for those, one of which I assume is the wretched minitank factory, which if I can get away with it, I will avoid doing forever.

The current main enemies I seem to keep fighting are hybrids (so many hybrids, at least I can still research their workers) and the Syndicate. I've done the Cyberweb stuff to the point that they stopped showing up, although I never did a single thing with their portal network so I have no idea what that's about. It feels like UFOs have slowed down, as I've only seen Very Smalls of late.

[psavola]

This could very easily be observed by making a few searches in the tech tree viewer. The mod author thinks it's cheating (strictly speaking), but if that's the case, so would be asking questions here, so.. It is impossible to say for certain without a save, but let me make a few guesses.

It is very likely that you have failed to research an alien leader, engineer and/or navigator, because you're missing essentially all the alien tech. (Tritanium foundry shows you have interrogated an alien though.) Or you have researched just one and thought that's enough. You have likely gained psionics through alien psionics (werewolves, cats and/or Dr. Alpha), not through sectoid leader. But if you have researched the leader, you're still missing the engineer. You'll have to research about three dozen alien engineers and leaders to get access to most of the alien tech (+ a navigator and a medic). This mod is all about live captures and interrogating (there are probably a couple of hundred interrogations you should do), and you have done only very little of this and have just killed the enemy units instead.

You get underwater missions by capturing and interrogating a deep one. It is the easiest to do it before you terminate Church of Dagon, because many missions stop spawning then, but even after it has been terminated, there's still a small chance to spawn a mission or two. And you can get the info from MIB scientist.

Lack of UFOs is a RNG thing. The rate will ramp up rather than go down. You're way behind at this point, but that doesn't really matter. (You can usually complete the game by or about 2000 if you play properly.)

[Bambu]

This could very easily be observed by making a few searches in the tech tree viewer. The mod author thinks it's cheating (strictly speaking), but if that's the case, so would be asking questions here, so.. It is impossible to say for certain without a save, but let me make a few guesses.

It is very likely that you have failed to research an alien leader, engineer and/or navigator, because you're missing essentially all the alien tech. (Tritanium foundry shows you have interrogated an alien though.) Or you have researched just one and thought that's enough. You have likely gained psionics through alien psionics (werewolves, cats and/or Dr. Alpha), not through sectoid leader. But if you have researched the leader, you're still missing the engineer. You'll have to research about three dozen alien engineers and leaders to get access to most of the alien tech (+ a navigator and a medic). This mod is all about live captures and interrogating (there are probably a couple of hundred interrogations you should do), and you have done only very little of this and have just killed the enemy units instead.

You get underwater missions by capturing and interrogating a deep one. It is the easiest to do it before you terminate Church of Dagon, because many missions stop spawning then, but even after it has been terminated, there's still a small chance to spawn a mission or two. And you can get the info from MIB scientist.

Lack of UFOs is a RNG thing. The rate will ramp up rather than go down. You're way behind at this point, but that doesn't really matter. (You can usually complete the game by or about 2000 if you play properly.)

I've done engineers and navigators, actually, but never managed to keep a leader alive. You're correct that I got psionics via Dr. Alpha, rather than a leader. I didn't realize I'd need to be spamming alien captures of the same castes over and over to get tech options, I recognized the need for a leader but haven't had many opportunities where I knew one would spawn (my captures from the alien colony were obviously ineffectual on this front).

All of the cults are wiped out, the last being EXALT after I grabbed their leader on the seventh or so run of the base (he died to tasing a few times, others perished to unlucky reaction shots). I will note that RNG has finally given me a mission to Dimension X, hoping that yields something. I don't care if I'm playing slow, as it is *enjoyable*, and if it takes a long time then I figure I will just enjoy it for longer. But knowing a vague direction is nice.

So, capturing lots and lots of aliens. Will bear in mind, thank you.

[psavola]

You find leaders in medium and larger ufos. There are also a few earlyish guaranteed ways to obtain a sectoid leader. The first and foremost is a mission you get once you learn of Gertrud Ellison. A second is when you learn of hybrid controllers and get Hybrid Control Center assault mission.

In general the safest and easiest way to do captures is within UFOs, because you can use dogs and their barking to stop enemies from reaction firing. Outside TAC grenade launcher with gas grenades is also an option against some alien races.