Early game satellite help?

[Tschudy]

Ok so I'm not sure if there is some trick I'm missing but I seem to be having a hell of a time getting some satellites up early in the game. Even when I put all of my resources into uplinks and satellites, the amount of time it takes to make this crap seems to get me every time. 20 days to make the satellites, and 10 to build the uplinks. How do the rest of you manage to not lost two countries by month 3?

I AM using Enemy Within
I am NOT using Long War.

[asd]

I start the game with building a sattelite. If I go for scientist for the first abduction, then there's really no reason to wait with building one. If I go for engineers, I wait until I do that mission, then get a discount for the sattelite. It will be finished by the end of the month both ways.
Do the same in the second month (if you can build more sattelites, then all the better)
Build an uplink adjacent to the first one. You can wait more with this, since it takes less time to build, but be sure to finish it by the end of the month.

The trick is, never stop building sattelites. If you're out of space, build an uplink. Be sure it's always adjacent to another uplink. That's all there is to it really.

[Martial.Lore]

Don't let the early game satellites stress you out too much. Unless you are playing with particular Second Wave options switched on, you can afford to lose counties to panic and still win comfortably, having never experienced any cashflow problems.

I easily won my Impossible playthrough after losing four countries (on three different continents) in the first month. I never lost another country after that and never had too little money to build what I needed (or wanted).

[Tschudy]

Im trying to make it through without losing any countries at all, but the satellite and uplink build times are what is killing me, though in my last attempt, i screwed up by not upgrading my interceptor's weapons fast enough so they couldn't take down medium ships.

[Justin]

A few things you can do to accelerate things
-Use the grey market and sell things you don't need. Try to keep corpses used to create items (especially floater corpses, since later game they get replaced by heavy floaters). Do sell things like alien surgeries.

-Queue up satellites and satellite uplinks as soon as humanly possible. The build times are long, so get them going as fast as possible.

-Pace the panic of the various nations when you get abductions. Also gauge the results - I don't have the data in front of me but I think you need scientists to get more satellite uplinks.

[SamBC]

Engineers are needed for uplinks, I think. And power.

[Stardustfire]

Well i play EW vanilla C/I with some SW options, including the one that makes rewards for Abductions random in value.
my Normal Startcontinents are SA or Africa. (Preferable SA for the Instant Autopsy and interrogation) .

U dont need to rush Satelites to secure all Nations. Since i have EW i never ever do Sat Rush because i founding on MEC rush now. together with the randomness of Engeniers gotten from first Abduction (they range from 2- 6 what makes Sat rush unplanable) im still able to secure all Nations in most of the games (there is still the X-COM factor when something unpredictable happens)

Here is how i manage my Plays, maybe u can adapt something for u own playstyle (but maybe not, everyone is familar to different playstyles and tactics) :
I First research Melt (i will explain later why i mentation that) .
In the First Mission i normaly take Engeniers.
i wait for all missions that happen till day 9, than i start build 1 sat. explanation is normaly u got fist Abduction till that date and every engenier counts for the price.
when Melt is researched i build Cyber Lab rigth side of the lift (like i sayed im a MEC rusher) and excavate the field right from that if needed.
If im not to unlucky with the rewards from Abduction and the maybe first council Mission i build in the middle field on the right base side a facility that gives u extra Engenirs.
For that i sell all but one death Alien of every Species, and if the ammount allows it most of the elerium and aloy i got my hand on, but only if i must, also i definatly sell all Nav Comps and Engines (weapon fragments to urgent for research to sell at start) .
Depending on the Location of maybe Steam i dig first Lift and try to excavate to a Steamvent if i get one in second floor. If no steam avaible i build a power plant right from the new build lift.

At the Second Abdction i dont look at the Reward any more but on the Situation of ALL nations involved, including the ones only on the same continent with the abducted ones. I try to hold all panics at bay.

At the end of Month 1 i launch the one Sat i build to a Nation that need it (means only max red panic) or if i dont have such a Nation i search for one with max credits (i play with the SW option that randomice payment from nations as well)

Situation: production discount from 2 Engeniering Buildings, a first lift, and a Power Plant or excavated Steam.

Now comes Month 2:
if all gone well i have now enove engeniers to build at least 1 Sat Station (if lucky 2) but i dont build them at start of month.
when i excavated a Steam vent in month 1 i now try to build a Thermo Plant on it. (Like before selling all that is not needed) .
When the thermo plant is build or i already got a normal power plant i build one Sat Station (left side of the Lift in the upper floor) .
Again at day 9 i build 3 Sats (or 5 If i can affort it and got enove engeniers to theroretical build 2 Sat Stations) .
For the Second Sat Station the credits not always there in time to start it the build in time.

After this point all depends on the gameflow.

What is to Mentation is that i let complete Continents go into Panic by Ignore them at Abductions (preferable not that where i launched the Sat in Month 1 as long the covered Nation coud get in danger to end red) , u need to consider this at the first abduction of second Month (because u must choise one of the Continets that has a Nation involved there) , and u need to take into account that u must be able to cover this complete continent before end of month with the sats u build.
With that strategy u get the continent bonus and u dont get passive panic from abductions (because u covered all nations of one continent u dont get neighbour panic anymore there) .

With the following Months u continue to take u Abductions by the pattern to let a complete choosen continent go high panic and cover it at end of month.

Oh and at the Filed in the right corner of the right side in the starting Floor later comes the Foundry of Course for more repayment at builds.

[Mhblis]

Yeah if you are trying to manage panic it's improtant to know all the aspects of how panic works and is generated.
http://www.ufopaedia.org/

How I pick my missions beyond the first for the no countries lost approach.
First mission is always Engineers.

Country likely to be lost through panic.
Continent which has a country likely to be lost through panic.
Reward.

It is worth using the situation room from time to time to keep update on what all the countries are doing.

It's basically what Stardust explained but with a lot less detail and game knowledge needed :)

[ﾚﾌﾄ]

All money goes into satellites and uplinks. Should probably start in NA, they give engineers and good money.

Abductions should chosen be with the future in mind. Panic>engineers>Money...you don't do scientists, ever. If you're not save scumming, you probably will lose a country or two, but with some some luck and good planning, you cab nab 'em all.

If you're lucky, you'll get Steam really close to the first floor, build toward that, even if you cant get 4x4 right away or at all. If it's too far down, forget it.
Always have a contruction of an Uplink and Satellite at the same time. IIRC, you can get up to 3 satellietes per uplink (when they're together), so 3 should be up by the end of the month after your first. Keep the max panic country count @ 3. If a country has 4 panic, and shows up on aductions..sacrifice it. Same with 5 panic countries.

If your save scumming, country have a 25% chance of not leaving the council. Save 1 day before council and go into the map where time advances. Every time the clock ticks, a need seed is created. Just speed up time to the council on different minutes, if they leave, reload and speed up on the next minute. Repeat untill they don't leave.

Rushing sattelite is mostly about surviving, not saving all countries, although this should be your goal.

[Temper]

Originally posted by ﾚﾌﾄ:

Rushing sattelite is mostly about surviving, not saving all countries, although this should be your goal.

This is true,

And just sometimes lady luck on the Geosphere level will allow you to keep all countries even on impossible......but only if you've played to keep 'em all from the start.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=343478168

[Tschudy]

I only ever scum when I lose a colonel to a floater grenade blowing his cover followed by a formation of muton elites filling him with plasma fire.

[ﾚﾌﾄ]

Originally posted by Tschudy:

I only ever scum when I lose a colonel to a floater grenade blowing his cover followed by a formation of muton elites filling him with plasma fire.

I was just giving you all options, personally, I did it on one of my classic playthrough because I just wanted to smash aliens without worrying too much about money. TBH, I wish there were more styles of play than rushing satelites. Which is why I plan to do long war mod after my current Classic playthough.

[Tschudy]

The satellite issue wouldn't be nearly as bad if you could load up soldiers into a 2nd and 3rd skyranger and send them off to deal with it under the control of the computer, basically the way Final Fantasy Tactics does it. Also makes it easier to level up multiple squads of soldiers which, of course, would need to have the resources spent on them.

Seriously though, we can turn soldiers into psychic mutants/murderbots, blow alien spacecraft out of the sky, and even capture an entire one of their battleships, but the guys down in engineering cant make a couple more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ skyrangers?

[Ozymandias]

You can't have a second skyranger, the aliens don't send 50 mutons on your fist mission. It's a fair trade if you ask me.

[AuntEsther]

Stardustfire, Thanks for the insight. I'm relearning Xcom, last I payed was on the PS1 in the 90s. I need to figure out how to install Longwar. I've been spoiled with Nexus doing the instalation for my Bethesda/Bioware games.