Talk:Cydonia by May 29th

Does this belong in mainspace?

I'm not sure this is something that belongs in mainspace, especially when unfinished. Maybe it'd work better as User:ProspectOfIgnorance/Cydonia by May 29th? Magic9mushroom (talk) 10:48, 6 November 2022 (CET)

Constructive criticism

I think there are a number of things you've overlooked writing this.

Relevant credential: I got a June 1 Cydonia iron-man, and I had the launch button ready at May 14 or so; I was only waiting on a psi-screen (which from the looks of it you didn't do; I could probably have gotten the Avenger a few days earlier if I didn't divert money to eight Psi-Labs in order to brute-force the psi-screen), as I didn't trust Cydonia to go well without it (iron-man). I also had all tech researched of any relevance; I was well into "filling out the UFOpaedia pages" (I didn't have the Laser Cannon, but only because I didn't need it; I took 3 Hovertanks/Launcher to Cydonia and had 3 Interceptors/2 Avengers with dual Plasma Beams).

• While it's true that a base at the North Pole (which is, I assume, what you mean by "Thule"?) can get an interceptor to much of the globe, a base in Bavaria can also get an interceptor to most of the globe (neither is great at getting one to Australia, and Bavaria does better at getting one to Argentina), and has better radar coverage over high-priority zones for alien activity (in particular North Africa and Central Asia). Three bases in Bavaria, North Dakota and Beijing will cover about 70% of alien activity, and those plus ones in Argentina, Tasmania and the southeastern tip of Africa will get essentially all of it. Remember, only the first Alien Research mission and the Alien Retaliation missions will actively target your bases, so the amount of missions you can move via base selection is small.
• Manufacturing for profit is a trap if you're clock-time speedrunning (it's okay for real-time speedrunning). Yes, you can make a lot of money. But Workshop+Living Quarters+50 Engineers costs $3.7 million, $800,000 of which has to be paid 32 days in advance, and it takes 50 days just to pay back the cost of building them and only makes ~$2.2 million a month thereafter. A new base with (large/Hyper) radar costs less than that, takes less time to build, and will get you something like three times as much money a month in extra missions (remember, the aliens send something like $100,000,000 worth of equipment to Earth a month), and getting scientists early will speed up your tech research (I think I filled my third lab in early March or so?). If you need to build something that you'll actually use (i.e. Plasma Beams, Cydonia equipment and the Avenger), sure, build All Of The Workshops (I had four at a second base plus the one at the starting base), but deliberately building Workshops in order to manufacture stuff for profit is not optimal. (I ran out of immediate uses for my money around mid-April; there was some manufacturing for profit when my Engineers didn't have anything better to do, but I never even bothered researching Laser Cannon or Fusion Missile so obviously this was not a great contributor to my wealth.)
• You want a single base for Laboratories (i.e. the starting base) because of the Research Rollover bug. Having 150 scientists in the same place, with the right research order, gets you lots of rollover, which is part of why I finished research so early. (If you're going full bug-happy, there are some highly-cheesy exploits that make a speedrun substantially faster - particularly the "free money" bug from overflowing the base map in DOS versions and the UFO Redux exploit to get way more loot/points from UFOs - but I only used Research Rollover and - at least theoretically, though I don't think any base defences actually happened - Base Disjoint.)
• Once you have Laser Rifles, farm terrain is not as much of a problem as you might think. When you find a building, have four soldiers shoot it from beyond visual range with automatic fire from their Laser Rifles. Now there is, for the most part, no more building (aliens inside may or may not be killed, but they should at least be exposed for other snipers). You can use fewer than four if you don't mind a few more wall segments left standing (i.e. if you have two scouts looking at where the building used to be, so that one can spot any aliens in the blindspots of the other). It slows you down to spend TU on that, but you'll still usually get the firing line in place in time for turn 21.
• I wouldn't bother buying Auto-Cannons or conventional ammunition for soldiers. If you manage it carefully (by which I mostly mean preferring to shoot with soldiers that have already shot, and loading the Skyranger with a mix of weapons so as to use up the different sorts of ammo evenly, not aimed shots or anything), your starting ammunition is enough to last you until you get lasers deployed (assuming you beeline, and you should; the Motion Scanner's a distraction). Auto-Cannons you buy are Auto-Cannons you'll later have to sell at a loss (AC-HE ammo can also destroy loot, which you do not want; it won't destroy the guns, but it can destroy spare ammo, grenades, and corpses, not to mention Elerium).
• Speaking of Elerium, Ground Assaults tend to be substantially more lucrative than Crash Recoveries due to the lack of a power source explosion, although this does need to be balanced against the potential of provoking Retaliation and getting more money from that. "Intercept the Small Scouts and Terror Ships - which don't land - plus otherwise-unassaultable ships in flotillas, but track the others for Ground Assault" was what I used IIRC (note that you will need Avalanches to kill Small Scouts and Terror Ships, as getting to Stingray range will let Small Scouts run and Terror Ships blow your Interceptor to hell).
• After Laser Rifles I went for the Mind Probe and Small Launcher in order to capture a Sectoid Leader in February. But if you want a psi-screen done on May 1 (as opposed to June 1, like I did) I'm not sure a Sectoid Leader from the February terror site will be early enough; you need to research the Leader and Psi-Lab (610 average scientist days plus waste) and then get your Psi-Labs building by March 7. Shooting down the first Terror Ship for February and then recovering it might work, though you'll probably have to make do with Stun Rods since the Small Launcher probably won't be ready. Of course, if you don't bother with the psi-screen (or cheat by looking at game files), you can avoid all of that (even the Mind Probe, at least for early on, since Navigators are common enough that random stunning will suffice).
• Personal Armour is another trap. Don't build it; you'll lose more money from Personal Armour soldiers getting killed (and taking the armour with them) than you would getting unarmoured soldiers killed in higher numbers. The only plausible exception is if you're going for a base before getting the Avenger, since you might run out of soldiers to throw into the meatgrinder otherwise - and even then, do you really need to go there so urgently that you can't wait for Power/Flying Suits?

Guess that'll do for the moment, though I might think of something else. Magic9mushroom (talk) 10:48, 6 November 2022 (CET)