Talk:TFTD Strategy Guide

Starting Base Location

For a base location I would say that the mid Atlantic or Pacific might be better. Remember you are covering the oceans, not the land masses. M52nickerson 12:00, 28 September 2010 (EDT)

Thanks for the help on this, I'm really not sure what the right approach is. My thinking around the Med was that you want to be as close as possible to as many Zones as you can, because it's the Zones (countries) who control your funding. The same argument as would be used in picking an Enemy Unknown starting base location. So my objective in picking a location is not so much to maximise the sea area covered, but to maximise the number of Zones protected. I did try a couple of times placing my first base in the mid Atlantic, and not much happened. But maybe that was bad luck. Spike 16:08, 28 September 2010 (EDT)

Scientists or Extra Base?

I've pretty much decided in favour of Scientists, but for the record, here are both sides of the argument:

The quick-start procedure outlined in the article should give you about $1.7M of spare cash, $2.1M if you use an improved starting base layout or don't care about changing the standard layout.

The main two options for this money are:

• Hire additional scientists. Probably the best strategy.
• Build an additional base during the first month (wherever the Graphs show alien activity, or wherever there is Funding to be protected)

Adding a new base early can help you increase your intercept rate, which can give a big advantage to loot and research. It can also help to avoid negative score penalties that can place you in grave difficulty.

Ultimately, scientists win the game, by developing the technologies that will first resist, and then defeat, the alien menace. The faster you can acquire these technologies, the quicker the balance of power moves in your favour, and the more likely you are to survive and succeed.

For that reason, additional scientists is probably the best option.

On balance, it's probably better to build a second base from the proceeds of mission loot, rather than your starting cash. Apart from anything else, building a base can be done more or less any time of the month without major impact, whereas hiring scientists really should be done at the start of the month.

Sub Combat

There is one difference in the Geoscape that really sets TFTD apart from UFO. I'm always able to happily get away with arming fleets of interceptors with Plasma beams and they were the bulk of my air defenses in UFO, but with the introduction of the otherwise utterly annoying sub 'depth' in TFTD, your Barracudas are going to be stumped frequently by enemy subs ducking down to depths that the Barracudas can't reach.

This makes Mantas and Hammerheads a nice mid-game topic to put emphasis on. Luckily, the sub construction topic is a byproduct of two of the most important technologies anyway, the Transmission Resolver and Mag Ion Armor. Probably be worth mentioning that you should keep a sample of the store item. -NKF 01:55, 29 September 2010 (EDT)

Great point, I will amend the suggestion to reflect that. In general TFTD is just much more challenging, I'm really getting in to it for that reason. Spike 09:20, 29 September 2010 (EDT)

Instead of arming both Barracudas with DUPs in the beginning one might want to keep one armed with dual AJAX since a DUP hit destroys the smallest Subs. This is a real waste of easily earned early income and research material. Against anything up to Heavy Cruisers a single DUP armed Barracuda is sufficient and attacking anything larger is a gamble. Of course this messes up the picket ship strategy...--Tauon 18:13, 10 October 2010 (EDT)

Yes that's a good suggestion. It's worth considering it costs $600K/month to rent that Barracuda just to tackle Very Small USO Survey Ships though. But in the first month or two I think it's a good idea. As soon as I get a second base, I transfer the 2nd Barracuda there, and from that point on it makes sense to arm with dual DUP I think. Have you tested this with dual Ajax though? From the data tables on this website, I would expect dual Ajax automatically kills a Survey Ship (damage limit 60), since 2 Ajax = 60 to 120 total damage. If you've seen Survey Ships survive attack by dual Ajax regularly, that has some implications for how sub combat works. Anyway I'll have to try that, and also Ajax + Gas Cannon, which would be pretty much guaranteed to crash a Survey Ship rather than destroy it. Thanks! Spike 19:56, 10 October 2010 (EDT)

It worked for me in the majority of tiny uso intercepts. However I recall a case were it was destroyed. I guess one would have to go dual gas canon to be completely on the safe side. The single Ajax fires twice before one gets in gas canon range. However dual Ajax is usable against Cruisers(the craft which one will encounter most) as well and Gas Canon leaves the craft too open for return fire for my taste.--Tauon 09:53, 11 October 2010 (EDT)

So just to be clear, you routinely use dual Ajax against Very Small USOs (Survey Ships, containing one alien), and only rarely do they get destroyed? If so that's very interesting, because it suggests that the processing of whether the USO is crashed or destroyed occurs between the impact of the two torpedoes, even though appear to 'the naked eye' to be simultaneous impacts. Either that, or the damage values for Ajax or wrong, or the damage process is misunderstood. On the current understanding, it should be 50%-100% of base damage (60) per Ajax torpedo (average 75% = 45 damage). The threshold for crashing should be 50% of the Survey Ship's defence strength, 60 x 50% = 30. The threshold for being destroyed should be 100% of the Survey Ship's defence strength, 60 x 100% = 60. So even if two Ajax both did minimum damage, 2 x 60 x 50% = 60, they would always or very nearly always destroy the Survey Ship. So this is curious. On the other hand if you were using the 1 Ajax + 1 Gas Cannon combo to consistently crash Survey Ships, that's more understandable. Spike 11:40, 11 October 2010 (EDT)

Yes, I routinely use dual Ajax to deal with the Survey ships(1 alien, 1IBA,1MagNav,8AP). I do use the patch to switch the hulls in battlescape. I just run a small empirical test(new game,superhuman,prepare the Baracudas: 1 dual Ajax, 1Ajax&1GC, build large sonar) to see if I remembered right. Fast forward until I get the very small contact. Save. Intercept with Baracuda 1(dual Ajax). See what happens. Reload. Again. Out of the 10 times I went before I got bored. I downed it 10 times. 6 or 7 times with the first salvo The rest with the second. Then I repeated the cycle with Baracuda 2. I can confirm that usually one 1 Ajax hit is sufficient to down the Survey ship. Due to the inaccuracy one often needs to fire 2 or more. 2 Ajax are fired in aggressive attack mode before the GC gets to play. I managed to destroy the uso 1 time out of the 10 tries(3 Ajax and 1 GC shell fired).--Tauon 14:29, 11 October 2010 (EDT)

Secondary base

I usually make my second base the manufacturing base.

Yes I agree that it makes sense to make the 2nd base a manufacturing base.Spike 12:27, 11 October 2010 (EDT)

If memory serves me right I usually start with an Sub-Pen(low cost, takes a long time to build), a large sonar(improved detection) and a Store(space where one can store stuff away in case of an attack on the main base) like this.

Normally one would add the living quarters south of the store next to be able to garrison the base. However if I recall right there is a chance for aliens spawning in the living quarters module - which would compromise your main defence line to be. So I usually add 2-3 more stores before I put down the living quarter. I use stores because these build fastest and a good defensive layout is unfortunately slow to develop. However it will take a few month before one has pillaged and sold enough stuff to hire a large bunch of technicians. Not to mention researched the stuff to build. Setting up the 100-150 scientists in the main base needed to research stuff at reasonable pace takes priority. And even on superhuman difficulty the aliens usually don't bother my second base before I got a garrison by mid to end February. Once the living quarter finishes I add a MC lab or two to help with the screening. Transmission resolver is next in the building queue. So this is the intermediate design.

Next add one more sub-pen living quarters and workshops as money permits, on one more store and replace the outdated sonar with a MC generator to reduce the number of base defences. The following final layout is not optimized for build time - I leave this as an exercise to the reader.

This layout allows to crank out those new subs fast or make tons of money. There is enough workspace for large projects and plenty of storage for the defence displacers and supplies. Only one should be needed. In any further base I build 3 sub-pens and add 3-4 pwt defences, a bombardment shield and more storage(the zrbite keeps piling up) and more mc labs for faster screening.

Rushing MC

MC is undoubtedly the most powerful tactical advance - so powerful that some consider it cheating - at least if one uses MC chains.A highly skilled MC squad usually eliminates all combat casualties if used properly and allows the safe training of any soldier, maximizes loot(less unwanted destruction) and together with drills/tasers no ammunition is needed to safely kill large numbers of enemies. An it greatly helps during terror missions, night missions(alien scouts) and against lobsterman. Once the high MC strength soldiers(80+) have been identified by the lab it usually just takes just 1-2 month with lots of intercepts to max out the the MC skill(as far as combat is concerned). This enables them to control any alien on a whim. Secondary stats are increased as well while training. So in order to win easily one would want it as early as possible. Lets see how fast it is possible. Usually you will manage to obtain a reader in January. By the start of February the alien containment should store a live terrorist. This could result in an active lab by end of February. Spend the rest of February researching other stuff. In March research the MC reader. If you have run into tasoth by then you are lucky. If not but you know where a colony is located you are also fine. Just send a bunch of rookies to grab one (bring tasers(or TSL if you got them), flares and something to deal with tentaculats) and get the hell out of it as soon as you got it. If half the rookies die its still a win. Then research the tasoth and disruptor and you are ready to roll in April. If one is lacking a live terrorist for unlocking the MC lab - a live tentaculat provided by a base will do(Fire from your dropship at all other alies until one gets close enough to rush & stun it with tasers - pickup and throw/walk it into the dropship). Theoretically there should also be a reader somewhere but I don't know which aliens usually carries it.--Tauon 16:28, 11 October 2010 (EDT)