XCOM Headquarters (EU2012)

XCOM Headquarters view

In Enemy Unknown (2012), the Headquarters is the single base from which you fight an alien invasion. Nicknamed the Ant Farm by the design team, the base is presented with a side view cross-section that allows the player to access the main game options.

Basic Facilities

The HQ view displays the Time and Date, the number of Credits(§), Monthly Funding, Alien Alloys & Elerium & Meld (if any) and an Event List. It also allows the Commander to quickly access XCOMs six main areas of operations and their options through the following buttons.

Facilities

Image	Facility	Description
	Mission Control	Contains the Geoscape where you can advance game time forward, choose missions to respond, view global coverage, and watch aircraft on their way to a mission.
	Hangar	Houses the base's Skyranger troop transport and its Interceptors. Allows to equip, check the status of repairs and transfer Interceptors throughout Earth's continents.
	Barracks	View your list of soldiers and their individual characteristics, customize their appearance, and equip them for missions. You can also hire new soldiers, access the Officer Training School & Psi Lab, and visit the Memorial to fallen troopers. Capacity: 99 soldiers.
	Research	Manage Research projects to obtain advanced technology using your scientists, review earned Research Credits, and completed Research Projects.
	Engineering	Build Aircraft, Weapons, Armor and other equipment. Receives bonuses from Workshops and Foundries. * Build additional facilities, excavate lower levels and build Access Lifts.
	Situation Room	Provides a global view of the funding countries and their panic level, satellite coverage with additional interdiction aircraft, financials including a menu with links to pending requests and the Gray Market, where it's possible to raise credits by selling advanced technology to Earth's nations. Finally it contains a list of strategic Objectives to help XCOM progress through the alien invasion.

Resources & Manpower

The base holds all of XCOM's resources and manpower available for Research and Engineering. Those are as following:

• Credits (§) - Used to pay for everything (scientific and manufacturing projects, hiring soldiers and purchasing interceptors, etc). Credits can be raised through the Council's monthly stipend, by selling alien artifacts on the Grey Market, fulfilling country requests or through the completion of combat missions.
• Power - required to build new Base Facilities.
• Alien Alloys - advanced materials that can only be recovered through successful completion of combat missions, namely UFO recovery ones, or by killing specific aliens such as Cyberdiscs, Sectopods or Heavy Floaters and recovering their bodies. Alloys are used on both research and engineering and to fulfill country requests.
• Elerium - extraterrestrial energy source that can only be recovered the same way as the alloys, plus through a specific Council mission. Also used for scientific and manufacturing projects and can asked by countries for credits.
• Weapon Fragments - recovered from weapons of aliens that died from non-explosive causes. Used for research and on Foundry projects.
• Meld - alien substance only available with the Enemy Within DLC. Meld can be recovered from Abduction or UFO missions and from the bodies of certain aliens such as the Mechtoid.
• Scientists - conduct Research projects. Can be gained through satellite coverage of countries/continents. through completion of combat missions or by fulfilling country requests.
• Engineers - conduct manufacturing projects. Can be gained by building Workshops or through the means already listed above for scientists.

Base Expansion

In Engineering you may build additional facilities to expand your base. The base has 24 expansion slots available underneath the starting facilities. The position of some facilities in relation to one another will provide bonus to their output. Most slots must be excavated (5 days, §10-§80 depending on the depth) in order to build a new facility. Facilities may also be dismantled for §5. The lower base level ground bonuses are randomized for each game. Maintenance costs are only included in your monthly bill after completing a facility's construction.

Additional Facilities

Non-unique facilities require more manpower (Engineers) as more of the same are built. This increase does not apply to the power facilities. After researching Advanced Construction in the Foundry it is possible to build facilities in rush mode. It requires twice as much of money, Elerium and Alloys but shortens time by 50%. Unlike everything else that can be produced in Engineering, the price and item requirements do not lower based on how many Engineers you have.

Base Facilities

Image	Facility	Descriton
	Access Lift	Access and power to lower levels.
	Alien Containment	Interrogate live captured Aliens
	The Foundry	Large manufacturing projects, improving manufacturable item attributes.
	Laboratory	Boosts Research.
	Officer Training School	Acquire additional Squad abilities.
	Satellite Uplink	Allows new satellites over other countries
	Satellite Nexus	An alternative to Uplinks allowing more satellites but at an increased cost.
	Power Generator	For additional power required to power new base facilities.
	Thermal Power Generator	More power. Can only be placed in base slots with steam vents.
	Elerium Power Generator	Additional power. Requires UFO Power Source research.
	Workshop	Boosts Engineering, resource rebates on projects.
	Hyperwave Relay	Required to win the game.
	Psionic Lab	Required to win the game.
	Gollop Chamber	Required to win the game.
	Cybernetics Lab	Enemy Within DLC only. Required to augment soldiers into MEC Troopers and build MEC Suits.
	Genetics Lab	Enemy Within DLC only. Required to perform Gene Mods on soldiers.

Base Design

An example of ideal base layout in Enemy Within

Be considerate of the available expansions slots you leave in the long-term. As an example, building several Satellite Uplinks for an overall lower monetary and resource cost than a Satellite Nexus. However, the Nexus takes up less physical space. As you near the end of the game you may run out of space and have to remove facilities, so utilize your space as best possible. Depending on factors like Steam Vents, Research, Satellites and so on, you will have to decide what to cut back on. Also note that you do not have to build facilities sequentially out from the Access Lift; you need only excavate out to the slot in which you want to build a facility (i.e., all the slots between it and the Access Lift are excavated but may be empty).

Adjacency Bonuses

The position of the facilities in relation to one another will provide bonuses to their output. For example, building Labs next to each other provide an adjacency bonus that increases the speed of research. Note that a facility next to two other facilities generates two adjacency bonuses. For example, four Satellite Uplinks in a 2x2 square would allow 12 satellites (8 regular + 4 bonus). A green plus symbol on the dashed border between two facilities in the Build Facilities screen indicates an adjacency is in effect.

For Enemy Within, getting the Foundry, MEC Lab (even if you don't plan to use MECs), and two Workshops up as soon as you can is a good investment: it's the easiest and earliest way to get a 40% Credits/Alloy/Elerium return on all builds (plus any from additional workshops) from then onwards, which makes base construction less of a drain on your resources.

Steam Vents

Steam Vents can be present on the 3 lower levels of the base and their location and number (max: 3) will be random for each game. Building Thermo Power Generators on them will provide additional power for new base facilities. Which leads to:

Power

The core amount depends on difficulty: 42 on Easy, 37 on Normal, and 30 on Classic and Impossible. For the latter, a Geothermal and two Elerium Generators will give 80 extra power points (plus another 4 if adjacent), for a total of 110 (or 114), while on normal, a Power Generator in place of the Thermal, plus adjacency, will get 107 total. Either will give more than the 105 needed in the example base layout shown. Of course, your power needs and capacity at any given point during a campaign will depend on what you have built and what you can afford.

There is a bug in which that the difficulty can be lowered from Classic/Impossible to Normal or Easy, a facility can be ordered for construction, and then the game returned to the higher difficulty: the power will obviously be 'overdrawn', but facilities will operate as usual.