Satellite Rush (EU2012)

Introduction

This is a build order and strategy for a Satellite Rush, tested on Classic difficulty (base game, no DLC). The aim of this build order is to launch 4 satellites in the first month (up to total of 5), 3 satellites in the second month (up to total of 8), and 4 satellites in the third month (up to total of 12). By the third month, you will have all continents covered except Europe or Asia, which will give you enough money to never more care about it, and still allow abductions to happen.

In order to succeed, it is crucial to not only consider the current month, but also the next one. Preparations for the month's facility construction must sometimes happen in the previous month. If you simply try to build 3/4 satellites and an uplink in the first month, you will most likely not be able to complete your next Satellite Uplink in the second month.

This strategy is not 100% reliable, which means, sometimes (rarely, but surely) you will not have enough loot to sell to build Satellites, Satellite Uplink or following facilities in the first month. Game can screw you up. Also, sometimes the Abduction mission will pop too late to build your first Workshop in time. However, restarting in month 1 is not a big loss, and most of the time you will be fine, you will just have to sell various amounts of Alloys or Fragments.

By going this route, you will only have Alien Containment up by 09 of May (third month), and Officer Training School by 24 of April (second month), and will not have Foundry until later in the third month, or even later. You wont be building any Labs at all until month four.

Also, by going this route, you will not be getting any Medikits/S.C.O.P.E/Vests or extra recruits (usually taken for higher HP) in the first month and be limited in amount of those you can get in the second month. On top o that, you will have to sell most of the loot you get from missions. When selling corpses and UFO parts is not enough, you will have to sell Elerium, Alloys and Fragments. Sell Elerium first as it will be only required later in the game. When choosing to sell between Alloys and Fragments, pick you poison. Fragments are only required for research, but Alloys will be the limiting factor in getting out Carapace Armor and Laser weaponry. However, you will be bottlenecked by fragments for the rest of the game, so selling them early will hurt you later. General advice is to see how many fragments you need to finish crucial research topics (Beams/Precision Lasers and Carapace Armor, for example) and sell the rest, and only then start selling alloys, but your mileage may vary.

The absolute bottleneck of this strategy will happen in the first month, and that's why going with North America seems the best choice - you get most starting funds (§300). Another serious bottleneck is the second month, where you need to raise at least 1 extra engineer by day 6 (in order to have at least 15 required to build a second workshop). That is your two main concerns.

In the build order base tiles will be referenced using (A4) notation, where A is first row and 4 is fourth column (A4 here refers to the first Access Lift, while A3 would refer your first Satellite Uplink).

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
A	A1	A2	A3	A4	A5	A6	A7
B	B1	B2	B3	B4	B5	B6	B7
C	C1	C2	C3	C4	C5	C6	C7
D	D1	D2	D3	D4	D5	D6	D7

To better understand the timings, keep in mind that March and May have 31 days, April has 30. Building Power Generator, Access Lift and Digging takes 5 days, Workshop takes 10 days and Satellite Uplink takes 14 days. Satellite production takes 20 days.

Lucky Man's Build Order

If you don't hesitate to replay your first mission a few times, this build order is much easier than alternatives, but requires either A5 or A6 (first or second to the right of the access lift) to be already excavated at the game start (which you will only know of after you have completed your first tactical mission). Build order then goes like this:

Note: With Slingshot and Enemy Within DLC, it is possible to dramatically accelerate the build order below. In addition, ignoring the first small UFO that appears, brings out a Medium Scout. This can still be shot down with just one interceptor (very very unlucky, two), giving much more loot to sell. The build order generally stays the same, with more soldiers hired or a Laboratory/Alien Containment/Officer Training School thrown in, in the first month.

March

• 02.03 A5/A6 Dig (the one that is not excavated)
• 07.03 A6 Workshop
• 11.03 *** Satellite x4
• 17.03 A2 Satellite Uplink
• 27.03 A5 Power Generator
• 31.03 *** Launch Satellites

April

• 01.04 *** Order Interceptors (2 is enough)
• 01.04 B4 Access Lift
• 01.04 A7 Dig
• 06.04 B5 Dig
• 06.04 A7 Workshop
• 10.04 *** Satellite x3
• 11.04 B5 Power Generator
• 11.04 B3 Dig
• 16.04 B3 Satellite Uplink
• 16.04 A1 Officer Training School
• 22.04 B6 Dig
• 22.04 B2 Dig
• 27.04 B6 Power Generator
• 27.04 B1 Dig
• 31.04 *** Launch Satellites

May

• 01.05 *** Order Interceptors
• 02.05 C4 Access Lift
• 02.05 B7 Dig
• 02.05 B1 Alien Containment
• 07.05 C5 Dig
• 07.05 B7 Workshop
• 11.05 *** Satellite x4
• 12.05 C5 Power Generator
• 17.05 B2 Satellite Uplink

Total money you will need in the first month is:

• §130 for Workshop
• §308 for Satellites
• §150 for Uplink
• §60 for Power Generator

Thus, you will have to raise §138 by day 11, and another §150 by day 17, and then another §60 by day 27. Crucial here will be getting the sum of money for the Uplink. This game is RNG based and sometimes it will surely screw you up by leaving you §1 or 2 off the sum. Then, you will have to restart, or cancel one of the satellites (in order to be able to do that, make sure to order them 1 by 1, not in bulk). However, most of the time, you'll be fine. If you're playing on Impossible, this is actually less of a problem, because more enemies means more loot to sell. Getting money for Power Generator is not a problem. Getting money for Satellites depends on having UFO show up before day 11. If it doesn't, you will only have enough money for 3. If it does, you will have enough money for 4. Generally, having 3 satellites is not that big of a deal, but still, you may want to fast-forward right after you finish your first tactical mission and see whether you will get your UFO in time, in order to save yourself time spent on doing the abduction mission, in case you absolutely want 4 satellites in the first month.

Therefore, it is a good idea to save after you have finished your first tactical mission and found out that you got a good base layout (A5 or A6 is excavated), and then fast-forward and see wether Abduction and UFO missions appear on time.

The fact that you want to get engineers on your first abduction goes without saying, since its obvious. But before the 06th day of the second month, you'll have to get an extra engineer on top of that. You can get it either by covering a continent that provides engineers for covering its countries, by getting them randomly as a reward from council mission, or from second abduction mission in the first month, or, if you get lucky with timings, for first abduction mission in the second month (however, this cannot be relied on, since it can as well happen after 06th - if you want to save-scum, save before council report, that's when time at which missions happen in the next month is determined).

Also, you should, from the start, consider which continent you will be covering first, and leave that continent unattended in the first two abductions (note that the continents that get Abduction missions in them are decided at the start of the month, but reward distribution is decided at the moment the mission pops up, so you can reload to get engineers reward to appear in the desired continent). You only got three reasonable choices for continents to pick, that's Africa, Asia or Europe. Europe is the best one money-wise (considering their bonus, which will save you additional §78 on workshops in the 2nd month), but will not give you engineers you need. Africa is better than Asia, since you get to cap another country (preferably Russia or some $ 100 one). However, its really your choice (and sometimes depends on how rewards for 1 and 2 abduction missions roll out).

When picking rewards for the second abduction in the first month, if you're going to be covering Europe, consider getting engineers. If you don't get'em here, you're viable to screw-up by RNG who won't give you them as council mission reward and will place first abduction in the next month on day 7. If you're getting engineers elsewhere - get money. You'll need every coin you can get in the second month.

In the second month, it becomes a little easier. Still, calculate amount of money you will need on crucial facilities before spending on non-important ones, or on squad upgrades like S.C.O.P.E.s and Medikits. You want to get a second continent covered here, and that is Africa if you didn't get it already, or the continent you placed your spare satellite on if you did get it. By day 7 of month 3, you will need a total of 6 extra engineers from external sources, in addition to 4 you got from your first abduction mission. Since you cannot get less than 3 from an event, and get 4 from Abduction mission, and you will be getting engineers from countries you cover, usually you'll be fine. However, still pay attention to this, since you'll need 25 total engineers to start building third workshop in month 3.

In the third month you are way less stressed, you can now afford juicy stuff like OTS upgrades and some nice gear. Watch out for the large ship that comes early this month - you absolutely have to have one Laser Cannon and one Phoenix Cannon Interceptor on each continent for that one (if you don't want to save-load).

Recommended research path to take is: [Fragments] - [Materials] - [Carapace Armors] - [Beam Weapons] - [Precision Lasers] - [Experimental Warfare] - [Heavy Lasers] - [stuff you need to capture a live alien]

Unlucky Man's Build Order

What if you didn't get lucky with already excavated tiles and don't want to restart? In this case, instead of having Workshops on A6-7 and B7 you'll have to place them on A5 and B5-6, and Power Generators vice-versa. Problem is that Workshop takes 10 days to build, unlike 5 days it takes to build a generator. Therefore, you will have to start excavating space for your second workshop on 01.04, and to do that, you have to build your Access Lift on 27.03 and your Power Generator on 22.03. That means you'll have to get money for your Power Generator earlier, and you'll have to find an additional $50 in the first month. Usually, that will not be a problem (if you already got thus far, meaning you passed the Uplink bottleneck) but you will have to sell nearly everything, all your Alloys and Fragments, severely crippling your research and ability to field Carapace armor and Lasers by the time first terror mission happens in the second month.

If you don't want to suffer through that, you can build your second Workshop on A1 - this will take away your adjacency bonuses, but they aren't that great anyway (7% rebate that you only start to get in the end of the second month, and that's like several $ per completed facility, by the time it ramps up its already irrelevant). Therefore, you build first Workshop on A5 and generators on A6-7 and second workshop on A1 and your Officer Training School goes on B5. At this point, you'd better substitute your third or fourth generator with a Thermal one, so that you can place your third workshop on B6-7, but if you get even more unlucky, and have no available Steams, you will have to build third and fourth generators on B6-7 thus making you build your third workshop one level deeper, on C5 (which, again, will require you to build access lift one month earlier) or on A2 (which will delay Alien Containment).

Note: in the EW DLC, where you're able to get a 98% rebate on well-placed bulk of workshops and relevant facilities, it might be more important to go for adjacent placement after all.

1st month on Impossible: Build Order

Build-order for 1st month (March) on Impossible difficulty - "Fast Satellite Uplink". No research/hire soldiers/production included.

• 1d - excavate (§10, 5d, space for Workshop);
• 4-7d - Abduction Site (+4 engineer, for Workshop);
• 7d - Workshop (§130, 10d, +5 engineers for Satellite Uplink), excavate (§10, 5d, space for Power Generator) ;
• 7d-10d - UFO (small scout, 1 interceptor needed), UFO Crash Site (sell as much as possible); Note that if you let this go, you get a Medium Scout with more loot(though this may be almost impossible to get this in this time-frame without a lot save scumming).
• 11d - 3x-4x satellites (§77 each with 9 engineers; 20d) not in pack (1 by 1),
• 12d - Power Generator (§60, 5d, power for Satellite Uplink);
• 17d - Satellite Uplink (§150, 14d);
• ...
• 32d - Council Report

2nd Abduction Site and Council Mission will be this month, but it usually goes after 17d.