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-------------------------------------------------------------------------- UFO - Enemy Unknown : the FAQ! (version 1.2) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have added some more stats and some more contributions. Feel free to send any new additions by e-mail to me (tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk) or Paul James (prj91@ecs.soton.ac.uk) and they'll be worked in. Anything welcome! Tim -------------------------------------------------------------------------- *SPOILER ALERT* This FAQ conatins info that you may prefer to find out by exploring and researching yourself. If you want to play the game "in the dark" then read on with care or not at all!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- General 1a What is UFO : Enemy Unknown? 1b What spec PC do I need to run it? 1c Is there a patch available? 1d Can the save games be hacked? Game Info 2a Base facilities 2b Non-combat equipment 2c Ship types 2d Ship weapons 2e Soldier weaponry 2f Alien races 2g Alien missions 2h Manufacturing costs Questions (this is a FAQ after all :) 3a Overall strategy 3b Combat questions 3c Miscellaneous --------------------------- GENERAL ------------------------------------- 1a What is UFO : Enemy Unknown? The game places you in charge of X-Com in the year 1999; alien UFO's have been sighted around the globe and your newly set up organization has been charged with intercepting them, recovering any alien artefacts, and finding out where the aliens are coming from and what they are after. The strategic level is centered on a screen with a rotatable/zoomable 3D globe, with buttons to manipulate your bases, check UFO activity, check your funding levels from the 15 sponsoring nations, and to look up data in your online ufopedia. At the tactical level you control troops/tanks in a 3D combat mini-game which is quite similar in appearance to Ultima 7/8. 1b What spec PC do I need to run it? According to the box, you need a 386+, 20Mhz+, 2Mb RAM+ and a mouse; on a 486/DX33 with 8Mb RAM, mouse and 8-bit soundblaster it is pretty slick. Base memory requirement is listed as 560K, with 1Mb EMS/XMS also required. It comes on only 3 disks, and occupies about 13Mb of hard disk (including the saved games). The copy protection is a code at the bottom of each odd-numbered page of the quite well written 128-page manual. The manual supplement does *not* guarantee that the game will work with DR DOS, Novell DOS7 or OS/2. 1c Patches Microprose have released a patch to bring UFO up to version 1.2; the patch is now available at wuarchive.wustl.edu pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS/ufo1-2.zip ftp.uml.edu msdos/Games/Patches/ufo1-2.zip (or try /pub) This is an upload of a patch received in the post direct from Microprose. The correct patch file size should be 634063 bytes. The patch readme file lists the following points: * Please start a new game to eliminate all possibilities that the new version of the game fixes the bugs which you have seen so far. * This update contains a new version of the DOS Extender, DOS4GW to fix some compatibility problems seen with the earlier release. DOS4GW is not a MicroProse program and we were not aware of these compatibility problems until after UFO was published. If you had a problem running UFO, this update will fix that. * Corrupt tiles that caused multiple images to appear have been fixed. * Action points have been limited to 80 to prevent the "wrap-around" problem seen with the original release. * Mission variety has been improved to allow access to all types of missions when playing. * Alien intelligence has been improved to allow a tougher game. * UFO encyclopedia has been expanded to include missing entries. * The corrupt game file, UBASE_07.MAP which caused problems when entering the Alien Bases has been replaced. * There is no PC Speaker support within UFO. * The Environment Space error has been fixed. It doesn't seem to be necessary to start a new game after applying the patch; the old save files still work, though the soldier stat screens can look messy. You'll also miss a few ufopedia entries. The aliens in version 1.2 do appear to shoot back a lot more than before, and often have much better weaponry. Your base(s) come under attack earlier too (which in a way helps as you get some artefacts if you win!) 1d Editing the save games The format of soldier.dat (which holds your troop stats) appears to be like this, with 72 bytes making up each soldier: Byte What it does 9 Number of missions 11 Number of kills 13 Number of days till healed 17-29 Name (may be longer, not positive) 43 Initial Tu's 44 Initial Health 45 Initial Stamina 46 Initial Reactions 47 Initial Strength 48 Initial Firing Accuracy 49 Initial Throwing Accuracy 50 Unknown 51 PSI Strength 52 PSI Skill 53 Unknown 54 TU's gained 55 Health gained 56 Stamina gained 57 Reaction gained 58 Strength gained 59 Firing Accuracy gained A couple of people are working on neat save file editors which will hopefully be available one day soon for those who don't like hex editors! --------------------------- GAME INFO ---------------------------------- As you research more tech, your on-line UFOPEDIA will have more information added automatically. None of this is included in the game manual; some of the info here might be spoiler(s). 2a Base Facilities You can have up to 8 bases around the world. There are 36 (6x6) locations to place rooms in. Only the hanger takes up more than one location (2x2). Days Build Cost Cost/month Access Lift 1 300k 4k (Entrance to underground base) Living Quarters 16 400k 10k (Sleeps 50) Laboratory 26 750k 30k (Allows 50 research) Workshop 32 800k 35k (Allows 50 manufacture) Small Radar 12 500k 10k (300nm range, 5% detect/10mins) Large Radar 25 800k 15k (450nm range, 5% detect/10mins) General Stores 10 150k 5k (Holds 50 units of equipment) Alien Containment 18 500k 15k (Holds 10(?) live aliens) Hanger 25 200k 25k (Repairs/refuels/rearms 1 plane) Laser Defence 24 900k 10k (Def value 600, Accuracy 60%) Plasma Defence 36 1200k 12k (Def value 900, Accuracy 70%) Fusion Ball 36 1800k 14k (Def value 1200, Accuracy 80%) Grav Shield 38 2300k 15k (Gives defences an extra shot) Mind Shield 33 1300k 5k (Helps stop aliens finding base) Psi Lab 24 750k 16k (For troop psionics training) Hyperwave Decoder 26 2000k 30k (To evaluate alien missions) To dismantle a base, you must remove all facilities (which means transferring all people and equipment elsewhere if needbe) then finally remove the access lift itself. 2b Non-combat equipment Most of this you need to research, some you get at the start. Motion scanner - detects movement in the near vacinity Medikit - heals fatal wounds (heal), revives unconscious soldiers (stimulate) and boosts morale (painkiller) Stun rod - has a chance to render an alien unconscious Electro flare - essential for night time operations. Thrown. Elerium 115 - only found on alien ships/bases, and needed for many important weapons and power units. Mind probe - when used on an alien tells you his stats and rank (useful to find an alien commander or leader). Psi amp - required to allow soldier to use psionic attacks on aliens (attempting to cause panic or get mind control). 2c Ship types The XCom craft at your disposal throughout the game are: Max Weapon Hull Max Speed Acceln Fuel Pods Damage Cargo HWPs Skyranger 760 2 2000 0 150 14 3 Interceptor 2100 3 1000 2 100 0 0 Lightning 3100 8 30(E) 1 800 12 0 Firestorm 4200 9 20(E) 2 500 0 0 Avenger 5400 10 60(E) 2 1200 26 4 The firestorm is the new fighter craft you can research, lightning the new fighter transport and the avenger is the ultimate craft. (E)=Elerium fuel. The UFOs are as follows (from interogated alien navigators): Max Hull Weapon Max Ship Speed Damage Power Range Crew Width Small Scout 2200 50 0 0 1 3 Like an Apollo capsule Medium Scout 2400 200 20 120 6 9 1 level, small square Large Scout 2700 250 20 272 ? Harvester 4000 500 40 176 ? 16 3 levels, 11 windows Terror Ship 4800 1200 120 336 ? 30 2 levels, narrow top Supply Ship 3200 2200 60 288 ? 30 3 levels, wide middle Battleship 5000 3000 140 520 ? 30 3 levels, no windows Abductor 4300 500 40 160 ? Any observations on maximum (or minimum) crew figures would be welcomed, as these would probably help on missions. To see a picture of the UFO in flight just click on the UFO icon on the airborne combat display. To keep tracking the UFO until it is over land you can minimise the airborne combat window to an icon (making sure you are in "standoff" mode :) and then accelerate time to 1-min slices; when you're over land open the window and shoot! 2d Ship weapons You initially start with cannon/stingray/avalanche missiles, but you can research more stuff: Damage Range Accuracy Reload time Cannon 10 10 10% 2s Stingray 70 30 70% 15s Avalanche 100 60 100% 20s Laser Cannon 70 21 70% 4s Plasma Beam 140 52 140% 6s (uses Elerium) Fusion Ball 230 65 230% 25s It is important to match the weapon to the target as usually you want to force the alien to land (preferably intact) to be able to recover artefacts and prisoners on the ground. If you intercept over the sea, it doesn't really matter though. 2e Soldier weapons Your soldiers can be equipped with a hue arsenal of weaponry; either by equipping their transport ship, or in the case of a base defence when the attack starts. Many weapons can be loaded with different ammo types. Aimed Snap Auto Dam Type Dam Type Dam Type Pistol 78/30 60/18 26 AP Rifle 110/80 60/25 35/35 30 AP Heavy Cannon 90/80 60/33 56 AP 52 HE 60 I Auto Cannon 82/80 56/33 32/40 42 AP 44 HE 48 I Rocket Launcher 115/75 55/45 75 HE 100 HE 90 I Laser Pistol 68/55 40/20 28/25 46 Laser Laser Rifle 100/50 65/25 46/34 60 Laser Heavy Laser 84/75 50/33 85 Laser Grenade 50 HE Smoke Grenade 60 HE Proximity Grenade 70 HE High Explosive 110 HE Heavy Plasma 110/60 75/30 50/35 115 Plasma Plasma Pistol 85/60 65/30 50/30 52 Plasma Plasma Rifle 100/60 86/30 55/63 80 Plasma Blaster Launcher 120/80 200 HE Small Launcher 110/75 65/40 90 Stun Alien Grenade 90 HE (AP = Armour piercing HE = High Explosive I = Incendiary) The pairs of numbers indicate accuracy and TU cost to shoot. Note that the TU cost is always a percentage of the soldier's total TUs, not a fixed amount. Accuracy for two-handed weapons is improved if one hand is empty, and overall accuracy is better if the soldier is kneeling. The autofire option gives you three shots, but these are the least accurate (they are effective with area effect weapons like autocannon). Grenades are thrown, and the accuracy of where it lands is based on the soldier's own throwing accuracy stat. Many people suggest that the laser rifle is the best overall weapon; cheap to produce, rapid fire rate, quite accurate and doesn't use Elerium. 2e Alien types Attacks with Resists Weakness Notes Sectiod Weapons & Psi Likes cattle abduction Snakemen Weapons fire/heat Carries up to 50 eggs Ethereal Weapons & Psi Physically weak/blind Muton Weapons AP Strong & intelligent Floater Weapons Likes terrorising Celatoid Venom Silacoid HTH fire/incend Works with mutons Cryssalid HTH HE Turns humans to zombies Reaper HTH incend Two brains and hearts Sectopod Weapons plasma laser Highly armoured Cyberdisc Weapons explosives Works with sectoids Zombie HTH Dies -> Cryssalid You can get info on particular alien stats by using a mind probe on them. From doing this it seems average stats on aliens are as follows. Some of the stats vary a lot between the races! ----- Armour ------ TUs Ene Hea Bra Mor Rea Fir Thr Str PSt PSk Fro Lef Rig Rea Und Sectoid 55 90 30 80 100 65 30 60 30 - - 2 1 1 1 1 Ethereal 70 100 60 80 100 75 40 80 50 50 40 17 17 17 17 16 Snakeman 40 80 45 80 100 45 30 65 50 - - 10 9 9 8 6 Muton 58 90 90 80 100 60 30 60 70 - - 10 10 10 10 5 Floater 50 90 35 80 100 50 25 60 40 - - 4 3 3 2 6 Celatoid ?? Silacoid 40 80 115 100 100 40 0 0 70 - - 25 25 25 25 5 Cryssalid 110 140 95 100 100 70 0 0 110 - - 17 17 17 17 17 Reaper ?? Sectopod 60 90 95 110 100 65 30 0 90 - - 70 65 65 50 45 Cyberdisc 60 90 120 110 100 65 30 0 90 - - 17 17 17 17 17 Zombie 40 110 85 110 100 40 0 0 85 - - 4 4 4 4 4 Leaders tend to have slightly higher stats than other ranks in each race, for example an ethereal leader has 20-rated armour all round and a psionic strength of 60. The high TUs on cryssalids allows them to move a long way and often surprise troops from behind, turning them to zombies before you can react. When killed, zombies shed their skins to become new cryssalids. 2f Alien Missions There are many mission types. The nasty ones are terror and infiltration. Supply is handy because it can lead you to an alien base, and in turn to an alien leader. Research: Small vehicles, least threat to earth and Xcom Harvest: Any size ships, great concern to governments Abduction: Causes great alarm Infiltration: Make pact with earth govt, greatest threat to Xcom Base: Build alien base (you need to let them build one to win game) Terror: Causes hysteria, troubles govts Retaliation: Attack Xcom base Supply: Supply alien base A hyperwave decoder is very handy to work out mission types. Later in the game you are probably safe to leave ships on research missions alone and concentrate on the dangerous ones. 2h Manufacturing Costs This chart shows which items need alien alloys and Elerium for production; all of them need to be researched. You could use the info to work out which item is best to produce for profit if your engineers are idle ... (an initial glance suggests personal armour is good if you have the alloys to spare, or power suits if you have Elerium coming out your ears too :) Engineer Workshop Alien Sale Hours Cost Space Elerium Alloys Price Motion scanner 220 34k 4 - - 45600 Medikit 420 28k 4 - - 46500 Psi amp 500 160k 4 1 - 194700 Personal armour 800 22k 12 - 4 140000 Power suit 1000 42k 16 5 5 310000 Flying suit 1400 58k 16 16 5 420000 Alien alloys 100 3k 10 - - 6500 Elerium-115 - - - - - 5000 Laser pistol 300 8k 2 - - 20000 Laser rifle 400 20k 3 - - 36900 Heavy laser 700 32k 4 - - 61000 Plasma pistol 600 56k 3 - 1 84000 Plasma pistol clip 60 2k 4 1 - 4440 Plasma rifle 820 88k 4 - 1 126500 Plasma rifle clip 80 3k 4 2 - 6290 Heavy plasma 1000 122k 4 - 1 171600 Heavy plasma clip 80 6k 4 3 - 9590 Blaster launcher 1200 90k 5 - 1 144000 Blaster bomb 220 8k 3 3 - 17028 Small launcher 900 78k 3 - 1 120000 Stun bomb 200 7k 2 1 - 15200 Alien grenade 200 6.7k 2 2 - 14850 Mind probe 1200 262k 4 1 - 334000 FIRESTORM 14000 400k 30 - 65 - LIGHTNING 18000 600k 34 - 85 - AVENGER 34000 900k 36 - 170 - UFO power source 1400 130k 22 16 5 250000 UFO navigation 1600 150k 18 - 3 80000 Fusion ball l'cher 400 242k 6 - - 281100 Fusion ball 600 28k 6 4 - 53300 Laser cannon 300 182k 6 - - ? Plasma beam 500 226k 8 15 - 267300 Tank/laser cannon 1200 500k 25 - - ? Hovertank/plasma 1200 850k 30 30 5 980000 Hovertank/launcher 1400 900k 30 25 8 1043000 HWP fusion bomb 400 15k 25 5 8 31500 (The three aircraft all need 1 UFO power source + 1 UFO navigation unit, except the AVENGER which needs two UFO power sources). Clearly you should never sell Elerium for cash. You'd be much better off making either power armour or flying suits and selling that. ----------------- GAME TACTICS/STRATEGY ---------------------------------- 3a Overall strategy Where should I build bases? Build a few bases at the start, make sure they all have long range radar. Spread them around the globe; you only get 8; note the groupings of the richer funding countries and defend them early on. You can also build bases on both poles. The following eight locations have been suggested to maximise radar coverage of the globe: i) North Pole ii) South Pole iii) Southern California iv) Persian Gulf v) North-eastern Australia vi) Right most tip of South America (Brazil??) vii) Europe viii) right most Russia (near japan??) How can I make money? The main income at the start is from the funding countries, so you should maximise your efforts to win their favours early on. As the game progresses you can sell off artefacts for cash. If you set up workshops and have engineers with nothing to do have them make something like laser weapons and sell them; you can sell for more than it costs to make them. Why is Elerium important? Elerium is only found on alien ships; you can't make it yourself (you can make alien alloys). If you are running short of elerium use interceptors with laser weapons from multiple bases and give your troops laser rifles (laser rifles are very effective in any case). If you feel confident let the aliens attack your base, you can get lots (sometimes 1000+, on one occasion 3000+) elerium in a single battle. How do I win the game? The ultimate aim of UFO is to research (interogate) live aliens to find out where they are coming from and why. The best prisoner you can get is an alien commander; there should be one in an alien base. Once you interogate a commander you should get a big clue as to how to win the battle once and for all! What should I research? To find out about ship stats research alien engineers, to find out about missions research navigator. To find out about Psi research ethereals (and maybe sectoids) To find out about armour research alien alloys. To get new ships research UFO power source, UFO navigation, Elerium & UFO construction. It should be possible to build an "advances tree" similar to the one that is available for Civilisation; hopefully one coming soon! Don't research the same thing at different bases, there is no benefit; the research is independent at each base (as is manufacturing). Why do I never see any large UFOs? On missions like retaliation, base and terror, small ships scout before the larger ships come in. If you destroy the scouts no larger ships will appear. It is thus important to let them land! (else you'll have a long game :) By using the hyperwave decoder you can detect the alien mission; it can pay off to let aliens build a base so you can capture one of their leaders for interogation. 3b Ground combat questions Who/what should I take on missions? A nice combo on a Skyranger is a couple of tanks and 6 troops; the hovering plasma tanks are particularly effective. Tanks lose out as they cannot enter most alien ships (terror ships being an exception). Tanks can be left in bases to defend them from alien attacks. Flying suits give your troops a lot of versatility and save a lot of TUs in many terrain types. If a soldier dies though you lose the armour (but keep his other equipment if you win the battle). Try to always take a couple of rookies along to give them experience to boost their stats. On night missions always carry electro flares. Medikits are important as in addition to healing fatal wounds they can raise morale if used on panicing troops. Why do I lose ammo that I never use? After combat all clips loaded in weapons are lost, whether or not they have been used (not a great piece of design!). Thus you should unload any weapons that uses valuable ammo before the battle ends. To unload click on the weapon over the "rifle" icon on the soldier's equipment screen (this can also be used to select alternate ammo before battle). Why should I need grenades when I have autocannon? An autocannon has very impressive firepower. However it is very heavy to carry, and can reduce a soldier's TU total. A soldier equipped with a laser rifle can carry a couple of grenades and use them to flatten small buildings or other targets without needing a bulky cannon. How can I fire on aliens in their movement phase? You can carry out opportunity fire on aliens as they make their moves. To do this, leave enough TU's after your move for at least a snap shot, then if your trooper sees an alien and has good enough reactions (s)he will automatically fire on the alien. You can use the 4 icons near the bottom left of the screen in your movement phase to reserve the TUs. What's with troops missing in action (MIA)? If one of your troopers in under alien control at the end of a battle (s)he counts as MIA; therefore try to wait until (s)he is no longer in control before finishing off aliens. Troops unconscious when the battle ends seem to survive. How do I open spaceship doors? Simply target your soldier to move to the "square" behind the door and (s)he will then automatically open it (using some TUs). It's wise not to open doors without plenty of spare TU's or without using a motion scanner first. How do I counter psi attacks? Ethereal and sectoid races have psionic abilities. This means they are able to amke a number of psionic attacks on your troops for which they do not need line-of-sight on the target. There are two types of attack: Panic - if your trooper succumbs (s)he will panic, possibly dropping equipment and then running, possibly also going beserk. Control - potentially worse; aliens can control targets, thus getting your troops to fire on each other. The effect is usually temporary, and can be reduced in effect by not bunching potential victims too close together. When you research psionics and build psi labs, you can evaluate each soldier's resistance to psi attacks (his/her psi strength) and train them in psi skills (which allows your troops to make psionic attacks if they have a psi amp on them in battle). Yes, you can leave troops in the transport and use HWP's to scout for aliens to attack with psionics! Psi skills can be trained, psi strength is constant, so don't waste time on psi training troops with low psi strength. Psi training allocations happen at the end of each month at bases that have psi labs. 3c Miscellaneous Why do my soldiers rarely get promoted? To have promotions after battle you need to have a certain number of troops around all your bases for the promotion to be possible. This little charts sums it up: Rank Sergeant Captain Colonel Commander Troops needed 5 11 23 30 There can be only one commander. So if you have 35 troops around the globe in theory you should have 1 commander, 1 colonel, 3 captains, 7 sergeants and 23 rookies/squaddies.