Bases (Apocalypse)
An X-Com base is the headquarters of operations for dealing with the alien problem within Mega-Primus.
Important: Each building has a home cell. It is a 1x1 cityscape tile in the shape grey box which looks like a car-port or parking garage. This is the heart of the building and where road vehicles park, employees stay, facilities are built et. If this tile is destroyed, the base it contains is destroyed and (usually) everything with it.
Purpose
A base is a collection of facilities constructed within the basement of a building. An X-Com Base must contain facilities that are utilized to maximise potential and efficiency. At minimum, a base must contain:
- a place to barrack troops.
- an area to store items.
Facilities are available to enable customisation of a base to optimise particular usage requirements. In general, operational priorties are:
- a strike base.
- a biology research base.
- a quantum physics research base.
- a manufacturing base.
Other facilities may further enhance such operational priorities to include:
- emergency medical care.
- combat training.
- psionics training.
- craft repair.
- alien lifeform containment.
- internal defense.
Start Base
At game start, a fully functional X-Com base is provided for free, including some troops and equipment, scientists and enginners, and a small collection of vehicles. The location of the start base is randomly chosen according to game difficulty from the available buildings owned by the Government: either a warehouse or a slum building.
The start base has no operational priority. The facilities provided are in random areas. The shape of the layout may hinder efficient use of defense, living space, and other specific priorities.
Note a certain buiilding is structurally unsound. (restart the game until a more suitable place is provided).
Base Purchase
X-Com starts with one randomly selected base. Additional bases may be purchased at any time, funds permitting. A priority in choosing a new base is:
- the type of top-side structure (warehouse or slum) that will hide the X-Com base within the basement.
- the layout and quantity of corridors.
- the surrounding area to shield your building from stray weapon impacts.
- price.
A further consideration is the amount of launch tubes, however, due to parking of craft at any building, launch tube quantity is not important.
Base Design
There a many considerations and trade-offs to make when planning your bases. Base location, security, coordinating human resources, etc.
Bases with large layouts are able to have more facilities constructed in them, and can make good all-purpose bases. Bases with limited space need to be specialized as a specific type of base, such as one which only repairs your vehicles, researches Quantum Physics/Biochemistry or only contains Workshops.
Every base needs a few Living Quarters and a Stores module. If a base is attacked by an organization, it is necessary to have at least one agent at the base otherwise the base will be destroyed without opposition. In addition, any Workshops will require at least one storage module to store the newly manufactured items.
When planning your base, it should be noted that Repair Bays and Access Lifts are the entry points for hostile forces during base raids. Place your modules around the base with the raids in mind.
It is a good idea to cordon off the entry points with Security Stations. With the stations in place, enemy forces will often suffer heavy casualties before defending agents run into them. In case the stations fall, they will have damaged the enemy force considerably or at least delayed the enemy long enough for you to lead your scientists to safety and coordinate your combat troops.
One consideration for managing raids is the distribution of personnel at the base. In combat, you have six squads of six agent slots that is shared by your agents and the technical staff. Six of the individual slots are reserved slots (for mind controlled units and presumably the security stations), leaving room for only 30 personnel to appear in the battle. In an overcrowded situation where you have a lot of agents and technical staff, you will have no choice in which agents or how many of them appear in the battle once the raid commences.
On a similar note about staff distribution, if all the scientists, engineers and agents are present in one base, it is very likely that one well-placed attack on the building may completely annihilate the entire platoon of agents and technical personnel. For this to happen a piece of building needs to fall on top of the bay through which X-COM agents enter and leave via car. To reduce the risk of such a catastrophic loss, either avoid using Slums for research or manufacture complexes, or consider decentralizing the labs and workshops to smaller bases around the city.