Black market advice?

[TheMightyJohnFu]

So I'm curious, what should I be selling and when should I sell it, I have researched lot's of upgrades but can't afford to build them right now and I'm under pressure from the avatar project.

[Roderick]

The black market is changing the things, it is interested in, periodically.You can see it by the star on it in the buttom panel. The first three thing in the List are marked as "interesting" and are sold for... I think the tripple price as usually.

I always go there wenn the star apears. Expecially datapacks are a great source of ressources. On the other hand, I only buy scopes and perception PCS, maye an engineer or scientist if necessary.

[76561198034396398]

i only sell intel,but always try to keep at least 90 "in the bank" otherwise some projects can't be completed i made the mistake of selling,whatever it is to make Predator armor then had no resourses,Intel always pops up in special missions

[Mistfox]

Trooper corpses are probably your best bet, they are technically a renewable resource, but just don't go overboard with selling, keep a reserve. None of the manufactured items actually show a profit, even the "interested" ones only break even on supplies and you lose out on any material used.

TL:DR

Sell common enemy corpses, keep most of everything else.

[Roderick]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Trooper corpses are probably your best bet, they are technically a renewable resource

Good for economy and ecology. xD

[BoydofZINJ]

Keep all advent soldier corpses. It took me a month to get enough for Plasma. On Legendary, you stop getting troopers after a while and get nothing but SILLY ROBOTS and missions that you extract out and dont keep corpses.

[ginyu549]

So far I've only played on Veteran, but I just finished my last Iron Man run with the following resources left in my inventory:

15 Officer Corpses
14 Shield bearers
14 Chrysallids
14 Codex Brains (can we even do anything with these?)
11 Elerium Cores (Experimental ammo/grenades are terrible) These are what you want to sell mostly. They bring the most supplies by far, especially if the market is actually "interested" in them. I sold 10 or 11 of them in the early game for $32-ish supplies each. (I also haven't gotten into heavy weapons or WAR/EXO suits)
176 Alien Alloys - (Built all the squad-wide armor and weapon upgrades.)
61 Elerium

...and yeah, then a bunch of other misc stuff that isn't really worth anything.

Be sure to get the "vulture" tactic from the GTS as soon as you can, for only $75 supplies it pays for itself quickly, especially when you get double or triple elerium cores or data caches on a drop.

Also be careful to not sell corpses you need to build something you want. Took me forever to get a gatekeeper shell to build my alien psi-amp.

Also, as BoydofZINJ says, be careful about selling early enemy corpses. I really wanted mindshields for all my non-psi operatives on the last mission (worked great BTW - no mind control) and yeah, sectoids (and other early game enemies) stop appearing so frequently as you get later into the game. Never had a problem with troopers or advent appearing though, they seem to be everywhere... If you get desperate for them you can let the dark event happen where reinforcements appear on all gorilla ops - those are almost always advent troopers and such.

[TheMightyJohnFu]

I'm really struggling with the campaign at the moment, can anyone offer advice on things like; what to build first? what to reasearch first, when to make relays etc..?

I have to start again for the third time now due to failing to p[revent the advent project.

[d-Raven-b]

The biggest problem is probably that Avatar Research sites spawn in regions you cannot access. That means you can't complete missions to reduce the project's advances.
If this is the case I would build a resistance com really early in the game. Get some engineers that you can staff it and you should be okay for a decent ammount of time.

However, if you see yourself loosing a lot at the missions and this is your reason for failure I would recommend building a Guerilla Tactics School or an Advanced Warfare center.
The GTS offers a lot of valuable bonuses (especially Squad Size +1/+2) which increases your teams punch in early missions.
But these upgrades are also costly.
If your interest lies more in creating hardy veterans, the AWC allows your Soldiers to develop bonus skills, which will make them much more powerfull in the mid-game. It also drastically reduces healing times. It might be priceless to have your best Soldiers up and ready for that critical mission.

@Topic
I use the black market predominately to purchase things I can't get otherwise (scientists are rare in my game and they spawn only at missions which are not interesting in terms of the dark events they counter), or to get money to finish a specific project.
I don't sell stuff to clear out my stock, as unlike in X-Com:EU (Original 1994) stock room is not an issue in this game.

[ginyu549]

There are several great threads in this forum about build order and strategy, but here is my advice:

First a warning: My style for beating this game on veteran is to put off doing the blacksite mission and contacting other regions until after I have mag weapons and plated armor. This means that the avatar project clock gets well ahead of where it is comfortable, often tipping into the countdown timer before I even attempt the first blacksite mission. That is because I research weapons and armor before resistance coms. Then, once I have weapons and armor I do the blacksite mission and start contacting new regions to beat back the avatar project to manageable levels. This may not work on higher difficulties, and obviously failing the blacksite mission kills the whole play through, so DON'T FAIL - lol.

As far as base building, build the GTS first always, and then try to get a soldier to sergeant so you can get the squad size increase. Also get "Vulture" from the GTS ASAP, as it will easily pay for itself. "Wet Work" helps as well early on, but if I don't get it early I'll usually never get it.

You'll then need to prioritize either power or the AWC. AWC mainly helps your soldiers recover from wounds faster, so if I can afford it/have power for it I'll build the AWC next.

Then the proving grounds, since you need it to advance the plot and get upgrades n stuff.

Build power as you need it. I prefer to build/upgrade power rather than station engineers as it leaves more strategic flexibility, sometimes your engineers can get stuck manning a power station if you put them there (the game says they are "performing critical work" or something and can't be reassigned. It's because you need that extra power to run ship systems.)

Also build Resistance Coms as you need them, these shouldn't be a difficulty.

Early on you'll only need 2 engineers. 1 to clear/build rooms, and 1 to station in the AWC to speed recovery time, but more is always better. (try to balance getting scientists/engineers if you can, but early you'll need at least the 2 engineers)

I also rush to build the Psi Lab as quickly as possible (doing sectoid autopsy early on as well to access psi lab). If you tunnel directly toward an exposed power coil or whatever you can build the Psi Lab on that spot and it doesn't take up any power, which helps with the speed of being able to build/run the Psi Lab earlier. It also maximizes the "power value" of that power coil spot as the upgraded Psi Lab uses as much power as you would produce with a power generator in that spot. You'll also want to upgrade the Psi Lab ASAP (I usually save enough to upgrade it immediately and stick 2 rookies in there to train). Once you get a Psi Soldier with Dominate and Stasis things become much easier. I actually had 4 Magus level Psi Soldiers by the end game (took 3 on the final mission). Also don't forget to station an engineer here to speed up training time.

And that's pretty much it.

One note: Workshops are fun but are totally not worth it if you do the math. Between the steep build time and cost to build a workshop it is better to simply buy engineers from HQ or the black market, unless you get really desperate and aren't getting any opportunities to buy one or get one from a scan or as a mission reward. If you worry about power just build some more power generators, they're super-cheap and quick to build compared to workshops. I always end the game with a couple empty spots in the Avenger as well, so building space shouldn't be an issue.

On the same note Labs are worthless as well. By the time I am nearing the end game I seldom have anything to research, and I never buy scientists or go out of my way to recruit them.

Getting ready to try the next difficulty level, and we'll see how it goes!

[Rusty | SkyPaladin]

This mod can help make sure you don't sell stuff useful in R&D
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=648410303

[Roderick]

Originally posted by Rusty | SkyPaladin:

This mod can help make sure you don't sell stuff useful in R&D
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=648410303

nice one, thank you!

[Stardustfire]

crysalids are a nogo to sell, like in xcom1 there is to good stuff buildable with there remains and they drop to less, same goes for faceless. most of the other alien corpses i sell all over 10 and i sell basic weapon mods, and most advanced mods, also the personal chips are mostly get sold if not superior or something like +aim.

[Abrakadabra]

Black market will prolly give you a bonus to selling trooper corpses when you first make contact with bm.

Save your intel.

The only thing worth spending intel for initially, is aim. Apart from that, if you have some spare intel, then alloys and crystals can be a good investment, specially, if you struggled with the first 2 supply raids. The first supply extraction mission can be challenging. Classic supply raid is rather easy. But if you fail both, then you can still get all the ressources you need via excavation and black merket.

Keep track of the closest early facilities. Build relays and start to intel-buy your way towards the first facility asap. You have a bit time initially, but not much. If you win almost all missions, then you will have plenty of intel to spare or at least a good amount. Then you can even buy pretty expensive engeineers, or scientiest or soldiers.

But if I dont get a perfect run and have to evactuate a few times or fail a few missions, then I tend to keep my intel. Only if theres juicy advanced or superior scopes and perception will I spend that intel.