Questions on Promo 3 and relative progress...

[Charly1]

Must admit, I am having a lot of fun with this. I remember playing the original back on my Amiga, what with all of the different versions of Xcom down the years... the hardest decision is which soundtrack to mod in.

Anyway...

A few quesions:

1... I have just started July 1998... I am aware I now have 6 months until colonisation begins. . I am also aware I need promotion 3 by the turn of the year to be in a postion to intercept ufos.

To do that I need to (and this is where I am unclear):

Capture a live one - research Deep one Communities
Capture an Alien - research alien origins
Into the Dark - no idea?
Cyberweb Portals ... no idea?

Do I just need one of, or all 4?

Then I assume I need to take down one of the gangs/cults  (think it will be Dagon as I have interrogated the boss guy in a green cloak, and now need to go to a "party").

Or do I need to take down all 4 to get promotion 3?

2... I have just attempted the cave mission. After several turns, the lights all went out and I got attacked in the dark... all my guys started to die... then I realised the game had bugged out, and reloaded and got to replay it in the light (it had me going for a while though, lol).

Then I came across some Silicoids. How do I take them down? I tried to shot them and stun them... presumably fire aint gonna work. I hit them with a torch too. Do I need to complete this mission to get "into the Dark"?

3... My weapons currently feel a bit ineffective. I am mainly using black ops pistols and rifles, and magnums for my high accuracy guys. The damage output is a bit lame though. I assume I need alien alloys to get the upgraded bullets? I have got a couple of disrupter guns from the anthropods, but they dont last long. I do get a bit confused by the way magazines/weapons expend their load. Sometimes you have a full clip for the next mission, other times it just disappears. Should I be a bit further along in weapons tech by this point?

4... I have 50 agents, 20 engineers, 40 or 50 scientists, 4 bases... Have long range sensors researched. I have a fair bit of alien weaponary that I cannot use (I got a ufo landing in the first month... it went to shit, but I did manage to take one down, and with my lone survivor, pick up the body and plasma and did a runner... Just goes to show you how useless Fox Mulder was). I also have a plasma pistol and some sonic weapons that I cannot research. I feel as I am in a good position generally, within six months I should have a radar station and minimal base in every continent (just need Africa and South America). I am only clearing £1m income a month through funding at the moment though, as my research team and engineers are taking a big chunk of cash. Does this sound like a semi decent position?

This is a tricky game, although I have taken in very carefully. Although I got really excited at the durathread factory (thinking it would give me upgraded ammo). So I sent out my "A" team in a humvee and lost 2 commisars and a captain, injuring my commander and another captain. Taught me to retreat if the odds are stacked up (but I was not sure if the mission would repeat or disappear... so I jumped straight in there.

Anyway... Cheers in advance!

[unarmed drifter]

since i just recently got shanked by the syndicate in august 99, i try to share what i found out:

1 - finish one cult, f.e. the dagon temple HQ + fulfill one of [capture, dark, cyberweb]. easiest should be a dagon fiend again, since dagon mounts terror raids and brings along deep ones.

2 - maybe try concussive damage aka grenades, dynamite?

3 - read the info tab on the weapon's page. Magnum is good but fares poorly against armor. Tritanium ammo is a lot better, so get this researched.

4 - sounds decent, but i'm not a pro
 

[Bananas_Akimbo]

1 - Yes, you need only one of them for Promotion III.

2 - Cave missions can contain a variety of loot (some of which leads to 'Into the Dark') and a large variety of creatures. Silacoids aren't even the most dangerous ones. The best general loadout for this mission type is shotguns, some flamers, knives or similar and explosives. Bio-Exo suits are an absolute necessity.

3 - BlackOps rifles and pistols are great general purpose weapons at this point. If you need more damage against unarmoured foes, the BlackOps SMG or any shotgun will work well. Against armour, use weapons with damage scaling, usually sniper rifles and melee weapons. Or just boom-boom. Personally, my teams become rather sniper-heavy, once pilot-training with its substantial acc-boost becomes available.
Most alien weapons are still far-off. Selling all but one of each alien laser or plasma weapon is a good idea. Chemguns can be adapted pretty early on, though. Tritanium ammo requires not just tritanium itself, but it also requires you to find the relevant ammo for each weapon. In the case of BlackOps weapons, you have to jump through yet another hoop and steal the tech from the Syndicate.

4 - 50 scientists is more than enough at this point. Possibly even too much. You said yourself, that you are having trouble with money. But it's ok, if you still have plenty of useful stuff to research.
20 engineers might very well suffice at this point, but you will feel the need for many more very soon. I like to keep as few of them on staff for as long as possible, until I actually have a lot of stuff to build and the money to do it.

[tarkalak]

2 - I managed the Silicoids with Shotgun AP ammo (40 damage) and black ops auto sniper rifle. I did try dynamite, but it only locked a portion of the map out, so I had to wait for them to walk out of it.

3 - That is normal I think. The Desert Eagle is better than Magnum in that it has better range and only 1 point of damage less. The BlackOps Auto Rifle is pretty good if you have an agent with good Firing Accuracy and Reactions. I also like the FN-FAL for, again, better accuracy than the Magnum and similar damage.

4 - You sound to be in good position. You could use the AWACS planes instead of bases to cover some of the globe.

[Mrvex]

Blackops weapons are solid and will stay with you for some time. If you have access to miniguns then use them in the caves. As weird as it sounds miniguns are a good close range weapon if you step one title away from the enemy and unleash a barrage at them.

Due to how old Xcom's projectile work, it doesnt matter that its 20% to hit, it will hit anyway in this scenario and miniguns have 95% armour piercing, so only 5% of the targets armour does something to the bullet.
What this means is that miniguns will instantly kill most enemies in the game at close range.

Also regarding finishing off Cults

Dagon HQ will be a total nightmare without good armour because its a jungle and tons of enemies and psionics and monsters will barrage your dudes the moment they step out of the vehicle. The easiest one is still the Red Dawn because its an underground base. It has been buffed to not be that easy recently so now they have armoured cars at the surface but you can demolish them with explosives or miniguns (Or rockets if you have them). And once you get that over, you can camp the entrace with two guys with melee weapons and enemies will be walking one by one to their shaking and your guys wont take any damage. And once theres like 50 corpses on the same spot the rest will surrender that XCOM is 2OP.

[tarkalak]

The Black Lotus HQ is also not that hard if you can bring the Osprey. There are two entrances and every Even soldier is put on one and every Odd soldier on the other. Bring dogs for Motion scanning, Scouts for the anticamo and some mines.

[Charly1]

Thanks guys... That super helpful.

Might focus on a red dawn capture... may I ask which  dude do I have to stun?

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

[Thunderwing280]

Might focus on a red dawn capture... may I ask which  dude do I have to stun?

For Red Dawn you have to capture a red dawn sailor, they're dressed in blue and whie striped shirts and generally carry pistols, afterwards it's the coordinators who have black coats on

[Charly1]

Well...

I got to December 98, and I have got the Dagon Temple mission.

Unfortunately, I did not manage to get a base mission for Red Dawn in time.

I have got an Arrow to knock down UFOs, so I have a short term stopgap (so there is that).

So if the mission is in the jungle, what do I need to look out for? I am playing "easy" difficulty.

Thanks