X-COM Base Terrain

Eventually the aliens will find their way back to one of your bases and attempt to overrun it. This at least should be familiar territory: you've laid it out yourself, and have been working in it for months on end. Unlike other areas, whose terrain you will be laying eyes on for the first time at the start of the battle, your troops know the layout of the base right from the beginning. This is the only non-random terrain in the game-- the layout always reflects the base plan.

The smart Commander has laid out the base with defendibility in mind. The surface access points-- the lift and the hangars-- have been grouped together, and all isolated from the rest of the base. Hopefully there is only one choke point between the surface access and the base, unlike the example picture here.

Remember all those times your troops were ambushed in farmhouses, or had to rush the hatch of a UFO crawling with aliens? Now's the time for payback. With a good base layout, you should have enough time to set up good ambushes. Hide behind doors and pop out of them to engage the enemy. Make sure the choke-points are covered with every dirty trick you can think of. They should soon be choked with alien corpses.

Battle Notes

• Your troops will begin the battle scattered around the base, concentrated in the general stores and living quarters. Tanks will be principly in the general stores, as will unattended weapons.
• Don't soil your own nest. Some caution must be taken to avoid utterly destroying base sections, and losing them permanently. While any section can withstand one blaster hit, multiple blaster and explosive hits in the same section should be avoided.
  • Hangars, access lifts, general stores and living quarters are hardened against attack, and cannot be destroyed.
• That said, don't be afraid to blow a wall or two down to protect your base. Blasting the doors off the indestructable access lift is a good way to deny the aliens cover.
• the 80-item limit can be especially painful for a base that's stuffed with extra weapons and alien artifacts.
• Many modules have lots of smaller rooms and HWP closets. These cubby holes are good places to run for cover in between turns, and can sometimes provide your team with one chance of surviving a blaster bomb attack.
• Soldiers with motion scanners can do well by staying in the upper levels to scan for movement along the lower corridors.
• When constructing a base, be very careful that you avoid the Base Disjoint Bug where modules along the right and lower edges of the map can get sealed off. Improper placement will often end up forcing you to cut through the very tough walls and dirt blocks with heavy plasmas or tank lasers. However, with proper placement of modules, the sealed off walls can be very advantageous in controlling the flow of aliens. XComUtil users cannot take advantage of this as the setup tool for this utility automatically rips out the walls.

See Also

Base Facilities (UFO Defense) | Base Defense | Overhauling The Starter Base