Starting build order

[The Faceless Man]

Suggestions?

[khermage]

Are you referring to personal stuff to manufacture at your base, facilities to build at the base, or facilities to build on the Mars view?

[The Faceless Man]

Everything.

Research, Science, Training, Territories, etc.,

What's the most optimal way to start?

[Hasefrexx]

Usually I aim for the heavy suit first, you really won't enjoy missions where the suits constantly need repairs due to environmental hazard, and it lets you expand safely for a while.

Before that construction should be the crappy lasers, yeah, that's awfully bad, but it's all you have, and it's good enough against drones. The reticulian stuff should be kept preciously for when meeting beastmen. Oh yeah, and you should laso have 2 or 3 chain saw, a strong melee guy will do wonders and it frees up production queue. Then you will want enough medic stuff and combination repair stuff. Then explosives, that's how I manage early beastmen encounters, or at least get a handful killed (either you wait for them safely in a place, when they come you drop the TNT, run back a bit and wait for them, keep them busy shooting until it blows up). Then the suits. Then better and bigger guns, loads of it to trade with reticulians. Then I'm not sure I remember what I went for.

Territory, really you should grab anything you can. Early in you will want fuel to have a decent operational range. Then metal I think is reauired early in. Then wathever is easiest to grab, if you expand aggressively enough you will expand faster than you won't lack anything and will be delayed by research, but the important thing is, it's easier to take lands from drones than from aliens, so keep pushing and racking up experience, it helps a lot later on. Always bring in engineers in repair pipe missions and scientist in artifact missions to level them up, the special trainings they have is important, so they should be skilled both as soldiers and in their other speciality.

Edit: forgot to add: training is also one of the first thing I research, since some trainings are very powerful, but it also takes a while to train. Especially dual classers are hard to keep trained in both fields. Early in the game is the best spot to train though, because the kill robots missions are pretty easy, so they can be used to level up weak fighters while some memebers of the usual team can train.

[Reianor]

Here's a "build" order of research that I use for strategic insane runs.
Which I kinda don't recommend doing more than once in a long while btw.
Like most (if not all) games of this genre playing it on top strategic difficulty leads to a very rigid experience. There's a lot of “fun” techs here that you'll have to ignore for a long time because you need to prioritize survival necessities. Lower difficulties give you actual breathing room that allows some variability, but insane one is mostly one strict build order.

The completion dates are from my current run.

1.Military training by Apr 23.
We do this first because this way you can get minor suit wearing for your first aqueduct mission and that works wonders. (be sure to either get metals from below or a metal deal from yellow rets – you'll need that for the Tactical Training building)

2.Communication with earth by Apr 26
This is pushing it actually. If you wanna be safe put this further down the line.
I put it here, but I also play a heavily modded game which gives me a bit more breathing room because: A- I removed setup times from item production (so that I can use production queue as an actual queue, instead of manipulating it and keeping the pulse on items production all the time) which, as a side effect, gives me a bit of an edge with suit production race near the end, and B- I play with ALTR and thus my first weapons tech is 75% faster. That said I also removed default trainings and I'm spreading research workload around to less experienced scientists near the start, which slows it down somewhat.

TLDR – if you're running out of time with this “build” than this is the research to push down.

3.Survival methods by Apr 28.
And don't forget to build the Mars simulation building. Meanwhile...

4.Ancient Firearms by May 01.
If you're not using ALTR this would be Firearms.

5.Light Battle Armor by May 04.
By the end of this I have 4 people trained at Minor suit handling. Which I swap in to make me 4 Armored suits.
Which should finish right in time to allow survival through the third aqueduct assault.

And BTW, I stick to a 4-man squad till I get drones.

Pauline (Reticulan LR)
Gene (customised FN F2000)
Benat (Scientific laser)
Mark (Scientific laser)

This makes the first aqueduct mission more of a ♥♥♥♥♥, but this greatly ups your ammo efficiency on subsequent early game missions since you get to up your aiming faster than with a larger team. Keep a pistol and some ammo on Pauline for close range to save some ret ammo.

And another way to save ammo in early game is to ignore Cydonia. The worst that happens if you don't show up to that mission is that you get a logged “failed mission” in your overview. It CAN be tackled though even on insane, but if you're having ammo trouble in early game that's one way to deal with it.

Once you're done with 3rd aqueduct you get a bit more breathing space. Thing is, this is more or less where I am on my current run, and my previous insane run was a loooong time ago so I don't remember the exact order after this point.

Also I really should stop feeding this wall of text. Still it's worth mentioning a few “key” techs/chains. Namely...

For growth:
Earth Technologies + Fossil Fuel Origins > Fossil Fuel Power Plant (2nd lab, finally!)
Reticulan Technologies>Domes (4 labs, finally!)
Water Tank construction>Warehouses. (resources, finally!)
There's also advanced mining for which you'll need high terraformation level and both “advanced” resource mining techs. Without ALTR you'll likely need this before you can put warehouses to good use.

And for survival:
Earth Technologies > (Firearms with ALTR) > Advanced Firearms. Because shotguns and sniper rifles.
Heavy Duty Suit. Because environment is a ♥♥♥♥♥ on mars.
Automatic Defense system>Battle Drones. Because purple rets are an unbearable pain without them.

[mltnschroeder]

I found on 'normal' difficulty, research the low-hanging fruit first and when in doubt early on go for Earth tech. It's not too hard to get a 2nd lab and 2nd workshop built, and both of those are good short term goals too. Then you can divert personnel where they are most needed. Micro-managing who is being trained and who is working at the base and who is going on missions is obviously a big part of the puzzle.

Light suits are much better than they look on paper, since they allow lying prone, which dramatically increases both accuracy and defense and early on (until grenades) is one of your surest battle-winning techniques. Also toughness is great, since it allows your soldiers to fight on instead of falling unconscious at 0hp. So anyone who sees any fighting at all should get those two skills imo. After that get heavy-armor wearing for everyone before starting to specialize.

I made the mistake of not terraforming early on, which prolongs the late-game dramatically. So I'd recommend staying ahead of the curve and getting heavy into terraforming as early as possible. This also tones down the need for enviro-resistant spacesuits.

Your two scientist/techies are your vehicle drivers, since they can go on both types of construction missions. Reticulans should max-out all mental and psi abilities, then go for speed.

On 'impossible' difficulty, you need everything ASAP, including min 3 hospitals. I thought I had it under control and was content with my ability to fight off Beastmen Chieftains with my pea-shooters & my research and manufacturing was chugging along nicely, but then I got rolled by the Expedition who show up much earlier in the game. I simply couldn't field anything that could stop them... your own robots equipped w/ basic techs are useless on impossible and you don't have the resources to build the better robo-techs. So I am not really sure what works best early on.

[The Faceless Man]

Originally posted by Reianor:

Earth Technologies + Fossil Fuel Origins > Fossil Fuel Power Plant (2nd lab, finally!)
Reticulan Technologies>Domes (4 labs, finally!)

Why would you want multiple labs? The game only gives you 8 scientists (+1-2 extra), 4 of which need to be actively driving around claiming territory and setting up terraforming stations. Another 4 of them also loses time to military training.

There just doesn't seem to be enough personnel to warrant a 2nd lab, let alone 4 of them! I have seen this suggested elsewhere online, but it makes no sense. What's the rationale behind this?

The only justification I can see for this is the very late game when there's no more territory to acquire, no more excavations, and no more terraforming stations needed.

[mltnschroeder]

Originally posted by Lonerwurld:

Why would you want multiple labs?

At the highest difficulty level, I found expanding the base was priority, as I needed 2 labs, 2 mechshops, 2 universities and minimum 3 hospitals. Otherwise I could't keep up in the tech race and slowly lost in the attrition war due to lack of ammo and too many personnel WIA. Expanding fast was less of an issue than expanding well while keeping hold of territory gained w/ (at start) minimally-equipped troops and establishing a self-sustaining economy. On impossible difficulty, you basically need EVERYTHING asap, and have to really maximize who is doing what, or you lose.

[The Faceless Man]

Originally posted by mltnschroeder:

Originally posted by Lonerwurld:

Why would you want multiple labs?

At the highest difficulty level, I found expanding the base was priority, as I needed 2 labs, 2 mechshops, 2 universities and minimum 3 hospitals. Otherwise I could't keep up in the tech race and slowly lost in the attrition war due to lack of ammo and too many personnel WIA. Expanding fast was less of an issue than expanding well while keeping hold of territory gained w/ (at start) minimally-equipped troops and establishing a self-sustaining economy. On impossible difficulty, you basically need EVERYTHING asap, and have to really maximize who is doing what, or you lose.

I definitely understand the urgency of getting everything quickly, but how do you balance training with that?

All of the most valuable training for research takes 6-12 total days (can split it up between the 2 groups of scientists of course). On top of that, you have 4 soldier/scientists and a science vehicle for expanding territory.

How do you do it all in such short amount of time? By the time 12 days have passed, Beastman Shamans, Captains, and Chieftans are out, with Rollers everywhere. Once you have advanced firearms, there's nothing else I've found that bolsters firepower. Laser weapons are useless (except against Matriarchs).

I just don't see how you can spare the manpower for that 2nd lab when you factor in training and expansion.

[mltnschroeder]

Originally posted by Lonerwurld:

I definitely understand the urgency of getting everything quickly, but how do you balance training with that?

All of the most valuable training for research takes 6-12 total days (can split it up between the 2 groups of scientists of course). On top of that, you have 4 soldier/scientists and a science vehicle for expanding territory.

I don't claim to have figured the optimal way to win on impossible, but I generally do prioritize training over everything else. But invariably each scientist has no more points to spend and needs to do something at the base to stay occupied (and gain skill). So even one or two scientists in a lab part time is better than not having a lab. As the game progresses it becomes more common to have enough scientists to fully staff 2 labs. Theoretically you have enough scientists to even partly staff a 3rd lab, but you will only ever see that if you neglect terraforming and stop fighting.

Theoretically there is also a play style where you uniquely rely on your alien soldier ally for all combat healing, thus freeing up all human/alien scientists to do nothing but research/terraform. I played that way on normal, but there are always a few battles where the alien's slow movement becomes a liability, which might make it unviable on impossible.

You have just enough room at the starting base to squeeze in a second lab w/o needing domes. Getting to 3 metal to build domes is a pretty big hurdle, so I think the risk-vs-reward is worth it.

I generally only put 1 or max 2 peeps in vehicles (because I want to keep them at the base doing stuff) and that is my rate of expansion: slow but steady. I expand towards specific resources, so my territory tends to resemble an octopus. This seems to work well enough, especially once I research faster vehicles and major planetary/surveying techs. I'm not sure # of adjacent enemy territories has anything to do w/ the frequency of their attacks (except when trying to build mines/radar).

Originally posted by Lonerwurld:

How do you do it all in such short amount of time? By the time 12 days have passed, Beastman Shamans, Captains, and Chieftans are out, with Rollers everywhere. Once you have advanced firearms, there's nothing else I've found that bolsters firepower. Laser weapons are useless (except against Matriarchs).

I just don't see how you can spare the manpower for that 2nd lab when you factor in training and expansion.

Early game, I don't think there is any magic bullet. The difficult choices than need be made are simply part of the fun. But imo if you don't have more than 1 lab, you are basically stuck in a pipeline of 1 tech-at-a-time, which ultimately will slow you down more than the need for training or expanding.

Advanced Firearms and heavy armor definitely gives one a breathing space to experiment w/ other tech branches, but our soldiers are far from invulnerable. The beastmen will still overpower them in a fair fight, which is why it is paramount to not fight fair. Personally I don't feel 'safe' till I have gattling/EM techs, but 6 metal is a huge hurdle, by which point you probably already have a guaranteed win.

Unfortunately the game doesn't have an iron-man mode that forces you to accept soldier death. THAT would make getting better techs very important indeed.

[The Faceless Man]

Originally posted by mltnschroeder:

I generally only put 1 or max 2 peeps in vehicles (because I want to keep them at the base doing stuff) and that is my rate of expansion: slow but steady. I expand towards specific resources, so my territory tends to resemble an octopus. This seems to work well enough, especially once I research faster vehicles and major planetary/surveying techs. I'm not sure # of adjacent enemy territories has anything to do w/ the frequency of their attacks (except when trying to build mines/radar).

I see. I've been doing the trainings (surveyor / planetology) across the non dual-class characters and then putting them all in their respective vehicles and rapidly expanding across the map so I can seal the hyperspace gates (thus preventing beastmen expansion). But I suppose I don't have to expand that fast.

Plus you only need 2 with driver training.

I don't like any of the aliens. At all. When I'm done with reticulans, I kill them. When I'm done with expedition, I kill them. As far as I've ever been concerned, they don't deserve Mars.

[>>>Timeshift>>>]

Play at maximum difficult and you will see what your need for maximise effective build order.