Early Game Frustrations

[randomtango]

I am here to complain. I want to start up a decent Initiative campaign. I rolled some combo of 1-3 "lose loyalty on crit" stats for my counselors with no one useful in the market. I reset 4 times just to avoid that, but couldn't make anything happen. The game I settled on was not ideal, with an unremarkable scientist, an ethical kingpin, and having to buy a way to public campaign through orgs. I also picked up 2 Demanding type stats, but it was the "best" run I had rolled.

The nail in the coffin is that humanity first sniped the Mission to the Moon tech from me so they can choose Mission to Mars... It's tech number three. Save scumming isn't going to change that Humanity First has decided to give the space race to the two factions with a chance of sending probes. We are all still on four counselors, the protectorate has been going over cap to snipe my spoil countries. I dumped all my research in to orbitals. I'm lucky to have enough boost to shoot a probe at the moon... S*** in God's beard! This is infuriating.

It's freaking July of year one. Two of us will be going to space. Faction 1, me, who has had a time. Faction 2, Exodus, who in my Academy game on this patch managed to land mines and piles on five slots of mars vs my sending a probe despite having a similar boost income.

My plan is to immediately start robbing orgs from Exodus... With 9 Admin and no investigator. This will be painful.

[tserleg1471]

I suspect that two of your mistakes have been:
- To rush Mission to Moon/Mars before to get boost techs.
- To spend boost in Earth orbitals before to get some mines in Mars.

Probably you have made many more because this game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ complex and hard, and all of us make many mistakes in our first hundreds of hours.

Guides I recommend you to learn faster:

- Science guide.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2872971271

- Perun youtube channel. Maybe other players will recommend someelse.

- 10 steps. It is quite outdated, but a good base to start.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TerraInvicta/comments/xq5che/guide_how_to_defeat_an_alien_invasion_in_10_easy/

- Terra Invicta: Early Game Walkthrough. It also has a few links from other guides of the same author. Also outdated, but more advanced than 10 steps.
https://xcom.substack.com/p/terra-invicta-early-game-walkthrough

- Drives guides. One of the things that previous guides have outdated is how to choose drives for ships, this one is better here. If like me, you find the charts too complex, you can skip into the final conclusions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TerraInvicta/comments/1cjluwp/yet_another_04_drive_analysis_transfer_times_cost/

[randomtango]

I'm not quite that new. The drive analysis seems handy, though =) Perun's great. The CPUs initiated the space race. I couldn't control the tech slots early on because I went Russia. My plan was to have space mining and freighters before I allowed Mission to Mars to start. Oh well.

I salvaged the game by scumming back 3 weeks. That allowed me to snipe the spot HF was pushing and delay nonsense for a couple months. The AI has only now allowed me to start on Space Mining, but I'm currently the only one on the moon. My probe hits Mars in 6 months, and everyone else launched toward Phobos and Demios for some reason. The AI researches a lot of garbage when they get 1-2 slots, but on the bright side I may get nuclear freighters before the Mars race.

It's mid 2024 in game. I've been rushing to build MC in nearly all of EU's claims, and I've finally crunched down most of the unrest. The plan is to attack anything that has a mil tech less than 3.4 and unify the rest once MC is up... Eventually. I noticed with Belarus that I actually lost science and funding when I unified. I wasn't expecting those to be rounded instead of added, so it may make sense to waste CP holding instead of unifying.

Best of all, the traitor factions haven't touched US or China. I may disarm Pakistan just to be safe. It's likely I'll get everything I want this run. I haven't decided if I want to do an early missile boat shoot down, run missile superiority to stop surveys, or save all MC for mining and interface bonuses.

[SirKnechtalot]

Nahh i seen that rush to mars as first tech also. Quit the game on Jan. and have to restart becus it´s not only a useless time sink but also one of the most trashy starts possible. I guess the factions need to be hard coded not to pick total trash during the first year since even to ze mun on Jan is sort of rubbish.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by randomtango:

My plan was to have space mining and freighters before I allowed Mission to Mars to start.

This is a bad plan - it is much better to have Mission to Mars earlier because you can't build on Mars before it's probed and with planning well you can research Space Mining and Freighters before your probe gets there.

Originally posted by SirKnechtalot:

Nahh i seen that rush to mars as first tech also. Quit the game on Jan. and have to restart becus it´s not only a useless time sink but also one of the most trashy starts possible. I guess the factions need to be hard coded not to pick total trash during the first year since even to ze mun on Jan is sort of rubbish.

Researching Mission to Mars early (as in even before Mission to Moon) is actually one of the best things AI can do for you (not as a first tech, of course).

[SirKnechtalot]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Researching Mission to Mars early (as in even before Mission to Moon) is actually one of the best things AI can do for you (not as a first tech, of course).

Why? You need the means to establish an outpost? Let alone explore the place. At least this game the bot didn´t screw up since it took a year until it came up with that "idea" and i didn´t borked out entirely...
I still think it needs to be hardcoded not to pick it as no1 priority in jan 2024.

[randomtango]

Thanks for the feedback and ideas y'all. What are your research paths for engines and weapons? Do you assassinate every alien you find? Do you focus on any of the alien mission mitigation techs? Is the +3 to crack down tech worth it for 7.5k?

The rest of the post is an info dump.

So. This is now the longest game I've played. It's 2030. Playing Russia really slowed things down and messed me over. Bad research, bad mission control, and their mil tech is such garbage that it took me less time to take China, who is better at both. Now, even with 500 CP I struggle to break 2k research. The AI constantly snipes my slots for garbage tech.

Servants grabbed US. Even if I wanted to remove the servants, I can't crack them down. There's not enough CP to keep them out of every country. Not that pushing them out of US would change the ground game. The "good" AIs don't seem to have a plan to consolidate Europe or Australia. They only seem to consolidate when they're antagonizing me. I'm assuming the Alien nation will form in US if I don't kill aliens over there, but there always seems to be two aliens harassing me in Asia. I think I've killed seven or eight now, and they're coming back with 25 security, 3-4 salamander orgs, and a +1.2 buff to security from "number of aliens killed or captured." I can barely kill them in my territory with 25 espionage. If I kill one, another transport drops on Eurasia or China 3 months later.

I'm finally to the point that I can mess with research campuses on mercury. I was still first to mars, and I got my missile boats out. I tried to dominate space, but my copperhead advanced pulsar escorts can't keep up with the newer alien ships. I had an encounter with a cruiser where I was within 700 m with five boats with 30 missiles each, and the aliens outmaneuvered my missiles. I have the ability to try green lasers or t2 missiles, but I don't know how to build the next boats that will survive being shot in the back or break PD. I don't think being a sitting duck with lasers would improve that outcome. So I'm hiding in the ground game until I find a better engine and weapon.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by randomtango:

Do you assassinate every alien you find?

If reasonable to do so, yes.

Do you focus on any of the alien mission mitigation techs?

A couple of the cheap ones are okay but it's far better to protect yourself by keeping them off of Earth.

Is the +3 to crack down tech worth it for 7.5k?

Yes, very.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by SirKnechtalot:

Why? You need the means to establish an outpost? Let alone explore the place.
[...]
I still think it needs to be hardcoded not to pick it as no1 priority in jan 2024.

It's nothing really difficult to have mines online on Mars in the first half of 2025 even on Brutal - how would you want to achieve it if you didn't start researching Mission to Mars even as late as the beginning of 2024? It takes time to research it, for the probe to arrive, for at least one base core to arrive (with at least one mine) and in the meantime you can research other needed techs, build a mine (or mines) on Luna and gather Boost needed in case of Mars mainly for the cores (or even exclusively if you have all resources from mines on Luna in needed amounts).

Originally posted by randomtango:

What are your research paths for engines and weapons?

In 0.4 there are 2 main paths to good enough very early drives and they are actually complementary, not alternative:

1. Ion Drive to Grid Drive for ships with very low acceleration but high deltaV (very early interplanetary fleets) which has more costly but better performing alternative (with better techs) in Helicon Drive (not possible to refit from Ion and Grid Drives) - exceptionally good when paired on Escorts with Artemis torps in static walls against targets with below 3G combat acceleration (4G ships can quite easily outmaneuver even Artemis torps when launched from static walls)

2. Teardrop/Spinner/Pegasus from the Molten Core Drives branch for ships with high acceleration but low deltaV (very early maneuverable combat in local defense) with much more costly but better performing alternative in the Advanced Fission branch (up to Firestar which are also not possible to refit from Molten Core Drives) - exceptionally good when paired on Escorts with Vipers in maneuverable walls against targets with not very high armor/structure protection (the better protected target and the higher its acceleration the higher relative velocity at missile launch is needed)

They are complementary because:
- Molten Core branch has good reactors for Grid and especially Helicon Drive to perform better
- missile static walls can deal with less demanding opponents after interplanetary travel and eg. in interceptions of Transports during their decelleration but against more demanding ones missile maneuverable walls are needed (or at least the static walls need to be supplemented with ships that have enough PD or Vipers as antimissiles) both to reduce losses and to be able to win battles when having low amount of ships

Originally posted by randomtango:

I tried to dominate space, but my copperhead advanced pulsar escorts can't keep up with the newer alien ships. I had an encounter with a cruiser where I was within 700 m with five boats with 30 missiles each, and the aliens outmaneuvered my missiles.

In 0.4 Advanced Pulsar was nerfed to the point it's not worth researching it anymore and Copperheads were basically always worse than Vipers - now, both are performing bad in static walls but Vipers I would still recommend for very early maneuverable combat (but if I see Assault Carriers or Dreadnoughts coming I prioritize researching Advanced Missiles).

Ships from both above drive paths can be refitted with Advanced Missiles when effectiveness of Artemis/Vipers becomes unacceptably low (and of course with better Batteries, Radiators, Targetting Computers, Armor etc to improve their performance). Nuclear ones are so amazing that I see their usefulness even in the late game.