Newbe questions

[GENVOKE]

I had similar results on my first run of the mod. I think I got like ~7 months in or something and had 3 alien bases visible. On my current run I'm few months from 2 years in and haven't discovered an alien base yet.

You could probably assault, at least some variant, alien base with a high strength melee team fairly early on. But it would probably involve save scumming.

[doctor medic]

also if you can,use the discord so you can download the newer patches when they come while also having access to OXCE updates and hotfixes.
And the fact that you are in a discord you have real time communications instead of the forums comments and you can anger Dioxine in real time.

[LouisdeFuines]

The visible alien base was there for months.... And I still got good ratings.

I`ve send my expedition to most points of the map, but didn`t find the second one. 

It sucks somehow, that I`m forced to savescum.

But see, I got -3000 points. Even if I succeded in the visible base, it wouldn´t give me 2000 points.
Ok, when doing in the beginning of the month, the support-ships wouldn`t appear.

But honestly: I`m in midgame without almost no means to bring down UFOs.

Don`t know, what the game is expecting from me to do.

See this savegame, it is only one month before and I got a not bad rating WITH the alien base being there.

EDIT:
I`ve tried the alien base. It is yet unbeatable to me, since there are humans in power armor. Nothing I can deal with yet.

[doctor medic]

Were both around the same research progress so maybe you had a bad RNG with bases or excavators or you didnt do many pogroms that you could take on.

Still i recommend you start a new game with the new version and with the knowledge you have now to try and avoid doing the mistakes you did in the past,such as not researching cunning for 3 years and so on.

[LouisdeFuines]

There was one mutant pogrom, that I skipped, I admit.

[Zippicus]

I`ve tried the alien base. It is yet unbeatable to me, since there are humans in power armor. Nothing I can deal with yet.

You can kill pretty much everything in the game with melee weapons, hell most of the tougher enemies are easier to deal with by running up behind then and hacking away.  That being said you probably want to practice on enemies NOT carrying gauss weapons lol.

[doctor medic]

dont worry about early pogroms,humanists are easy apart for their weapons,which some of them can be researched so you can use them later,like hunting rifles,they arent even really armored in the start as they dont have their tanks and supersoldiers in power armor,spartans are about the same but with camo making them harder to see from a few tiles away but apart from slight damage reduction against piercing they are fine.

Later pogroms with enemies like the academy with their cyberdisks and when the traders get their boomossaurs and tanks is when things start to get challenging.

Enemies do scale a bit on their weapons so humanist will slowly go to laser weapons like pistols and carbines and military police that might escort them have armor that is very protected against bullets and shotguns.Always bring atleast one heavy weapon like rockets or cannons incase you find yourself in a bad spot or against vehicles

[BBHood217]

I`ve send my expedition to most points of the map, but didn`t find the second one. 

That seems inefficient.  Like in vanilla Xcom, your craft has to patrol (or anchor in this case) for a few hours to detect any enemy bases in its range.  And with how slow it travels, I don't think the Expedition would do that job well.

[legionof1]

not as inefficient as one might think given the large radar radius and infinite endurance, but certainly not quick.

[LouisdeFuines]

Ok, I`ve redone the month. Now I had 800 points +!

So the bases can`t produce the most negative points at all. It must have been something else.

Sad, that I can not tell, what is/was responsible. Would like to adjust my strategy to that.

[legionof1]

taking out a base not only removes the -500 for the base, but also any score gained from the battle itself which usually several hundred.

The total difference from knocking out a base vs leaving it active is about 800-1000 for the month you kill it in.

[LouisdeFuines]

@legion:
So why did I get 850 points for leaving it and doing only smaller missions?

Besides:
How am I supposed to raid a/the base without proper equipment?

[FG]

How am I supposed to raid a/the base without proper equipment?

I think you can't fully infiltrate them at this moment, as it is pretty hard even with a proper equipment. You can try to raid it and steal some top stuff (with score debuff). I have 2 constantly operational enemy bases from my last playthrough and i never have any problems with score. Place another hideout near enemy base and take down enemy supply ships (they will land right near the base), invest more into Anti Air stuff, don't rush any research projects marked as *xxx* and you will be fine.

[legionof1]

  yay low sleep assumptions.

If you went back and replayed the month *and* have the option for new seed on load enabled, its more then likely you got a much reduced amount of negative points causing missions like excavators, or pogroms, even the supply ships to the bases can vary widely in amount month to month. Even doing different research in a replayed month can have a drastic impact.

But with multiple bases active your gonna always be under threat of losing since you will start with -500 per base to work off. And -500 end of month score is threshold for losing if it happens 2 months in a row.

As to taking out bases, as others have advised melee will carry you a long way against almost any foe.

Even the lowly handle you stat the game with does 37 avg damage, with only 50s in its scaling stats. Something little higher up the tech tree, the spear does 60 with 50s in its stats. Some of the low tech melee options can do well over 100 damage a swing in the right hands.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yes, in early versions it was normal to encounter power suits in the first month... Your best option was the axe. This hasn't changed.