X-COM Bases (Hardmode)

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The concept of X-COM Bases remains unchanged from vanilla. With the increased Alien threat to the Earth, every effort will be needed to expand and build additional bases across the Earth to be able to effectively respond to all enemy threats.

With the increased cost of facility construction and maintenance, X-COM commanders will need to exercise great care and overall strategic thought behind every construction effort.

Headquarters

Welcome to X-COM headquarters. Fortunately your planners saw fit to design a defendable base of operations, with a strong checkpoint at the main access lift, any intruders will struggle to get a foothold. The design leaves ample room for growth as your operational needs expand.

X-COM commanders will need to determine if it is worthwhile to expand the headquarters into a fully fledged base of operations, or to split off operations such as manufacturing and researching into separate bases to avoid placing vital assets in one place. Transforming headquarters into a fully furnished base will provide quicker benefits and be cheaper in the long run, but run the risk of greater losses if a devastating assault on the base occurs, and guarantee a slowdown on international base expansion.

This base design maximises the protentional of X-COM headquarters. Enough living space to fully staff 100 scientists in two laboratories, approximately 100 to 125 engineers in three workshops and a sizeable contingent of soldiers, near maximum UFO radar detection and room for a interceptor fleet.

Of course, all the money invested into this is money that won't be invested in other bases, that could be better specialized.

Secondary Bases

Newly constructed bases confer X-COM full control on how to determine the base layout. Due to the budget constraints of waging a defensive war X-COM will find it prudent to specalize all constructed bases to speed up construction times and decrease overall costs. Some possible base designations are listed below.

Strike Base

Intended to house a transport craft and a strike team of Soldiers and HWP's, these bases can provide X-COM with additional strike teams and thus the ability to attack multiple grounded UFOs simultaneously. In their early construction phase they can be left as a radar base until funds become available to expand into a strike base.

Due to the high risk of Aliens preparing retaliation missions against bases that actively deploy craft to shoot down UFOs, it may be strategically wise to only begin deploying interception missions from bases that have a compliment of defending troops to ward off invasion attempts.

Industrial Base

As X-COM's manufacturing requirements expand, and the need to sell items to keep finances under control becomes vital, having bases dedicated just to producing items for constructing or selling equipment can become prudent.

With room for 350 Engineers and 400 Engineering space, this base can quickly produce X-COM equipment or craft, and on down-time can produce a large amount of items for sale on the market which rapidly produce a profit. With the leftover spaces being possible expansion points for either future living spaces/workshops, mind shield facilities or anything else that may be useful.

This base can also serve as a dumping ground for excess items in the early game that may not fit in the HQ stores.

Every effort should be taken to avoid using this base for interception work, placing the base in a remote location (Antarctica, North Pole) would be ideal. The attached radar arrays can prove useful for helping track UFOs for other bases to monitor.

Research & Storage Base

Due to the expanded research requirements of Hardmode, having a dedicated research base may prove a worthwhile investment in the long run. Furthermore storage of captured alien artifacts may rapidly consume inventory space at X-COM HQ and at any ancillary bases.

Because X-COM will generally not require an overwhelming amount of base-space for scientists, it may prove worthwhile to combine a research base with a storage base.

With sufficient staffing for 200 scientists, this should prove more than sufficient for X-COMs scientific needs alongside the 50 to 100 scientists at X-COM HQ. The excess space can be dedicated to expanding your storage requirements as needed. The attached radar arrays can help expand X-COMs radar range.

Akin to a Industrial Base, every effort should be made to avoid attracting hostile UFO attention in the region this base is located to avoid retaliation attempts against it.