keep getting discontinued. any tips?

[kutchinka1]

hey
it's the third time i have to restart and it's getting on my nerves.
I have no idea what am i doing wrong, every time the nations just decide i am dangerous and kill me.
any pro tips or strategy lines?
I love the game but i want to get on with it and do some x-cool stuff.
the point where i get screwed every time is a little after i get the real workshop. I played originally on dif 3 and than on 2.
any ideas? anything will be welcome!

[ivandogovich]

Sound like you may be having trouble with negative score hits early on. 

The best way to counter that is to have higher score.  Early on, some of the best way to get high scores each month is Research.  Especially projects where you "get one free" like interrogations, discs, and books.   Do your best to capture as many captives as possible.  If you can get a ship up to down Civilian Traffic (Aircar with a weapon that you loot from a landed small), you can farm a lot of civilians.  Research them repeatedly to have them tell you about weapons, countries, etc.  Each time, you get the points from researching the person AND the points for the topic they tell you about.  These 2-fers are great for high score.  Handles, stun batons, and tazo guns are great for this.  I often build a second prison in my first base early on, to hold the overflow of captives until I can make them talk.  I'll even throw a third one in my second base as it can hold overflow or captives from missions run by the B-Team here.

Also, hire as many Brainers/Mad Scientists as you can support.  They are expensive so you will need to get a good source of income to fund your enterprise.  Extractors making flame arrows, then grog can help until you get workshops up.  Once workshops are online, work on getting stills, so you can make a proper industrial brewing facility in a second base where you can have a couple hundred runts funding your enterprise.

[Scorrpio]

To me, it looks like early months, enemy activity is concentrated around your starting area.  But after first 6 months, enemies go global.   One way to track this is by daily charts checks: activity in regions/countries.   New alien missions are generated at start of month, and the bulk of multiwave missions happens during the month after.  What this means is you can expect you first heavy negative in August.  What this means is you need to work real hard on setting up more bases and getting more coverage.   And you want hyperwave decoders for this.   Tech-wise, you can get them rather early if you get your hands on an engineer.  But money-wise...   with better moneymaking early game manufactures nerfed into the ground, getting the funds necessary is going to be tough.

[Marza]

Increasing radar coverage and being able to shoot down civilian shipping is the way to go.

Devoting money to mad scientists is a priority, but I'd be wary of intensively researching captives at the start of the game for score. There are some exceptions, but personally I'd capture and ransom away almost all captives until I have built a 2nd prison block, another barracks and another hangar, increased runt population to 30 and hired 2 more mad scientists. I'd devote more captives to research after that.

From there it's time to get a more capable troop transport, radar coverage and an aircar for interceptions. Hyperwave decoders are a real luxury if you can get them, but in the beginning I would buy an expedition to patrol a neighbouring country.

That said, I don't think there is any written guide that will make a new player good at the game by simply reading it. I know I needed to play a few failed games before I could understand the game balance and I think the latest release has the hardest starting conditions for the player yet. Don't let that get to you!

[kutchinka1]

thanks everybody!
one of the main problems for me is not being able to shoot down any ships because8 the guns i get can't be installed on the ships or don't have the ammunition (i can't use the 25mm nor the goblin rocektz or the weird balls, i used the craft weapon from the codex but had no ammo for it) any ideas on how to get craft weapons on my crafts?
btw you guys are great.

[Scorrpio]

First off, you don't need to shoot down a lot if the craft - a lot of them tend to land someplace.   By minimizing the intercept window and shadowing the craft in geoscape, you can launch a ground assault as soon as they land.   This way you get the most loot.

Many crafts, you will get cannon parts, which, with proper tech, you can assemble into cannons.   And you will also get ammo 'magazines'.   These you need to disassemble.   Then you have ammo that you can use.

You can buy some weapons and ammo with proper contacts.
25mm cannon/ammo : Crazy Hannah
30mm cannon/ammo : Military Suppliers
50mm ammo : Crazy Hannah
Spike rocket launcher/rockets : Crazy Hannah
Ramjet cannon/ammo : Rogue Fields
Charger Laser : Mutant self-defense forces
Seagull launcher/missiles : Smugglers
Meteor launcher/missiles : Human/Reticulan alliance.

Dropped from crafts, you can also get gauss cannon parts(assemble into cannons) and gauss magazines (disassemble into rounds).  Also Plasma Spitter parts from bigger faction ships (i.e.raid a landed cruiser during a base build) or Plasma chargers from Reticulan ships. 

For the most part, these are short range and weak and only good for taking out lighter ships (civilians, transports, freighters etc)  Ramjets are decent if pricy, same goes for Seagulls.  Charger lasers are only useful to disassemble into parts.  Better stuff you need to manufacture.

[khade]

Weapons come in three types, I think: light, heavy and missile. And weapon slots are only useful for one type.  Our starting ship doesn't have any weapon slots, but it's not too hard to get access to ships capable of using at least one of the options.

There might be a fourth type called beam, as well, though I don't think it shows up in this mod.

[kutchinka1]

 how do you assemble those weapons onto the craft though?what research do you need to get the 25mm on the craft for an example?  hoe do you get crazy hannah as a contact? btw this research takes time. i never got far enough in the game to use those. and in my last playthrough i had a real problem with fuel. the helerium kept running out and the helerium distilling is supet slow. i had to buy a skyranger at the end of the line. sorry for all of the questions. it's just feels like i am missing something here.

[ohartenstein23]

The 25 mm cannon doesn't need to be assembled, it just needs a craft with a light slot.  The first craft you can get with a light slot is the aircar, then the shark jetbike or other battery powered craft. It says in each pedia article what weapons a ship can hold.  Start interrogating a lot of prisoners, get the car thieves contact research, and do the tiny drill project/codex research to start unlocking more battery powered craft.  The 4th slot type is called Shadowtech (STC) in Piratez and is only found on battery powered craft, but you won't have anything to fill that slot for a while.

[Scorrpio]

You assemble/purchase a weapon.   Then you add this weapon onto a craft in the Vessels section, provided said craft has the proper slot to hold it.   Starter craft (airbus) has no weapon slots so you cant arm it.

Crazy Hanna is an insanely useful contact.   Here is the prerequisites list:
Advanced Weapon Rumors: unlocked by researching any advanced weapon used by major factions.  I recall I got a Laspistol off a priest in a temple raid that gave me this.
Personal Computer: dropped by most civilians
Academy: research any Academy captive.
Traders Guild: research any Guild captive
Contacts: Merchants : unlocked by 'Cunning'
Superconductive Wire : Spring Cleaning/Researching
Explosives Summary:   Easiest unlock is regular HE grenade.
Heavy Weapons Summary:  can be tricky cause you will mainly see heavy weapons on pogroms.  Unless you can score one on a Humanist, DOOM or Spartan pogrom, your best bet is researching Gun Almanachs.

[Scorrpio]

About fuel:  once you expand and gain good coverage and have a faster craft, you should have no problem shadowing other ships and seizing them landed.   Doing this is going to get you lots of Hellerium.
Hellerium can also be bought in a pinch at 20k a unit.   Manufacturing it is insanely inefficient.   Runt hours can be much better applied elsewhere (i.e. medical supplies will net you 40k in the time needed to make one unit of Hellerium).

P.S. If you post a recent save I could run the research analyzer to check what critical techs you might be missing.